


assemble (forever fight as one)

by babygrxxt



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One Direction
Genre: M/M, everything is laden with irony, harry is adorably awkward, i love metaphorical rain, just a warning., please just trust me with niall and eleanor it's cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:07:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 62,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2536991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygrxxt/pseuds/babygrxxt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of oneshots in which the Marvel universe is somewhat real, Louis is a scientist who doesn't believe in super-heroes, Niall is his annoyingly perky apprentice, Zayn likes building things, Liam is patriotic and Harry accidentally picks up Mjölnir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Assemble

_Our world's about to break._   
_Tormented and attacked_   
_Lost from when we wake_   
_With no way to go back_   
_I'm standing on my own._   
_But now I'm not alone (Avengers Assemble)._   
  
_Always we will fight as one,_   
_Till the battle's won_   
_with evil on the run_   
_we never come undone_   
  
_Assemble, we are strong_   
_Forever fight as one_   
_Assembled we are strong_   
_Forever fight as one._

***

If Louis had the option of choosing which engineering student would have to follow him around during Halloween break, he definitely wouldn’t have chosen Niall Horan.

He had been convinced – _promised_ even, by his boss – that if he worked over Halloween and Thanksgiving he would be rewarded with not only a handsome bonus, but also a “get out of jail free” card for the company’s student training programme. Apparently, Nick’s word was worth  nothing.

(Louis really hated that son of a bitch.)

Louis let out a sigh and dropped the Sharpie he was holding onto his rumpled notebook. The blond haired Irish boy was unendingly fascinated with just about everything Louis did - from cleaning out the cogs on his various lab machines to eating his banana and peanut butter sandwich - to an extent that it became something of a fixture to have a pair of bright blue eyes fixed on him at all times. It wasn’t that he was unused to being stared at – back at home he was the brunt of all of his siblings’ affections – it was just that Niall looked at him as if he was some kind of super-hero, which he most definitely was _not._

It was distracting, in a vague way that a wasp buzzing around your head on a hot summer’s day when you’re too warm to care about batting it away, and Louis didn’t have time for vaguely distracting things. Unlike Nick, who was on a vacation to the Bahamas for a weekend with his loser bank manager friends and had left Louis in charge, he actually had proper work to do. Science work. Like disproving the ‘super-human’ phenomenon that had recently gripped New York, for what wasn’t the first time.

Repetition was the vein of Louis’ existence. He got up at 6:03am every morning, no matter how tired he was or how early his alarm clock went off. He got breakfast – wheaten bread with a thin layer of butter and one glass of strawberry smoothie to get his mother off his case – and then he took a shower before getting into his beaten up Volkswagen and heading to work, which wasn’t much different than the schools he’d suffered in for the majority of his meagre lifespan. He hated normalcy just as much as he craved it; he knew that everything had a specific place in this earth, and his was sitting in this exact uncomfortable chair staring at a piece of blank paper wishing that the answers would just materialise.

Sometimes he wondered if he was even smart enough to be in this job, all things considered. Of course, when he demonstrated this to his mother or siblings they just laughed and said, “You graduated with a degree in psychics at twenty, Lou! How can you think you’re not good enough?”

They just didn’t understand.

And now he was being reduced to juvenile declarations of un-understanding, all because Niall fucking Horan wouldn’t shut his fucking mouth.

He talked with an Irish lilt, which Louis normally would’ve liked but now found increasingly frustrating, and his words were spewed so quickly that it took someone of Louis’ intelligence to comprehend the mess of syllables and vowels. He flailed his arms around when he was particularly excited (most of the time, really) which frequently bashed into Louis’ pen and sent it flying across the room, occasionally landing in one of his colleagues’ biology experiments. I suppose you could say Niall was ‘gormless’.

“So what are you doing now?” Niall asked for about the fiftieth time that day. He was lying up against a reclining chair with his feet up on the desk – a position that was against company policy – and was throwing a wad of bunched up paper into the air and catching it on his lips before repeating the process.

“The same as I’ve done the past eight days,” Louis muttered patiently, tapping his fingers against the desk. He enjoyed the rhythm of it. It reminded him of the hours he spent in the exam halls staring at the wall in front of him when he was finished and the other pupils’ pencils were still scratching. It reminded him of the ease he felt during homework, or the boredom he felt listening to teachers describe what he already knew.

Niall grinned – he grinned very easily, Louis wasn’t so free with his happiness – and let out a light chuckle. “Just staring at the page all day?” he asked. Louis, not particularly thrilled with his response even though that _was_ the majority of his employment was based upon, frowned and picked up his pen again, tapping it against his teeth.

“You need to stop that,” Niall said, suddenly sitting up straight. Louis took the pen away from his mouth and raised an eyebrow in the blond boy’s direction. “It chips the enamel off.”

 Louis barely stopped himself from snapping, “Do I look like I care about my fucking enamel?”

The blond boy let out a deep sigh and pulled his knees down, planting his feet down properly on the floor, like a normal person would. “I’m _bored,_ Louis,” he said, drawing the word out with childlike irritation.

Apparently the name tag that displayed ‘Mr Tomlinson’ was pointless, because this boy was insistent upon referring to his employer by the first name he knew only because he peered over Louis’ shoulder as he was reading the post.

“Well perhaps you should be paying more attention, then,” Louis said, praising himself internally on his waning patience.

“You sound just like a teacher,” Niall huffed.

“That’s hardly fair,” Louis responded, scrunching his eyebrows together as he flicked his pen against the paper in front of him. Little splatters of ink from the biro created modernist patterns upon the margin. “I’m not that bad.”

Niall sat forward on his seat, placing his head in his hands and resting his elbows against the knees of his tracksuit bottoms (inappropriate attire for apprenticeship, Louis considered). “Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” Niall said, with an ever increasing smirk.

“No, I’m –“

Louis stopped talking when he heard the laughter of his – admittedly – best friend amongst his colleagues, Eleanor (she was only deemed as such because she did his photocopying and proofread his work at no extra cost, something Louis thought made her an amazingly good person).

“Aren’t you a bit past juvenile styles of arguing, Tomlinson?” Eleanor teased. She was dressed the same as she was everyday; a white lab coat, blue blouse, pencil skirt and heels that she most definitely couldn’t walk in. She had the entire aura of somebody who tried so hard to be the sexy scientist and yet failed precisely because she was trying so damn hard. Louis didn’t think it was fair, but life wasn’t fair.

“Shouldn’t you be doing some form of work rather than stalking my cubicle, Calder?” Louis quipped.

(He regretted to say that he didn’t actually _know_ what job Eleanor had in the company; in fact, he spent the first six months of his employment thinking she was a secretary before hearing another worker refer to her as Dr Calder.)

“I came to bring you coffee, snippy,” Eleanor said, casting a cursory glance and polite smile in Niall’s direction, causing the Irish boy to go both very red and also almost fall off his chair in the process. Eleanor was very pretty, but Louis had always been into people a bit more... masculine.

“What concoction have you came up with today?” Louis asked, vague amusement lacing his syllables. This had became a ‘thing’ between Louis and Eleanor that made him wonder if they gave up degrees in Eleanor’s alma mater for coffee connoisseurs.

Fun Fact: Starbucks has over 87,000 possible drink combinations, and Eleanor Calder had consumed, in her twenty five years, precisely 56,879 of those.

“A tall half-skinny half-1 percent extra hot split quad shot – two shots decaf, two shots regular – latte with whip. Thought you might need a pick me up after... you know.”

The ‘you-know’ to which she was referring was the unceremonious dumping Louis had just gone through the previous weekend, in which his boyfriend of exactly three months broke up with him in a text. Basically it included the words ‘over bearing’, ‘intimidating’ and ‘absolutely bat-shit crazy’. So.

“What’s the you know?” Niall asked eagerly, either because _of course_ that’s what Niall would ask or because it was the only subject of conversation he could think to bring up around Eleanor, who he had an admitted crush on.

Louis gave Eleanor a look vaguely reminiscent of, ‘You talk I poke you in the eye’ and, Eleanor being the annoying friend that she was, promptly ignored it.

“Louis got his ass dumped.”

Just like that, as swiftly as Trent had broken it off with him.

The second Niall burst out into laughter Louis felt his cheeks burning a bright red, a sensation that he had hoped he would leave behind in high school where he became more comfortable with it than any teenage boy really should be.

“I wouldn’t say I got _dumped,_ exactly...” Louis protested, scrambling at the remaining shreds of his decency as they tap danced across the table, also laughing in his face. Those stupid dignity pieces.

Eleanor was perhaps the quickest person to shut someone down. “That’s exactly what happened, actually. You got dumped so hard that I’m pretty sure Putin felt it all the way in Russia.”

Niall, who had only stopped choking on his laughter, began chuckling lowly once again, pointing at Eleanor. “That’s a good one.”

“No, it’s not,” Louis snapped, but he took the coffee from Eleanor, because it was a nice gesture. He supposed. “Well, thanks for the coffee. You better get back to work now...”

“I’m actually heading home,” Eleanor replied with a dazzling smile. “Max is taking me out for dinner tonight and I wanted to get ready.”

Louis nodded, trying not to smile at the look of utter devastation that appeared on Niall’s face. It was quite sad really; it was as if Niall was a puppy and Eleanor had just kicked him.

“You know,” Niall mumbled. “I could set you up with someone Louis. If you wanted.”

“And how would you know what I’m into?” Louis questioned, raising an eyebrow. Eleanor lingered around the cubicle, hanging onto the partition, considering Niall with interest flashing in her eyes.

“I’m good at reading people,” the Irish boy shrugged flippantly. Eleanor giggled lightly, but that was probably more due to Louis’ look of disbelief than anything Niall had said. “You’re gay, right?”

‘Is it that obvious’ hung on the tip of Louis’ tongue, but then he thought back to the flirtations with the male office staff that Niall had witnessed and the way that Louis went painfully soft in the vicinity of any attractive man and silently praised Niall for his discretion in the past couple of weeks.

“Right,” he answered finally. Niall smiled in self satisfaction.

“Knew it,” he said proudly. “I know the perfect guy for you. I promise you, you’ll love him.”

“He prefers brunettes,” Eleanor piped up. She had moved back over to the desk now, and had actually gone so far as to pull a chair over so as to further discuss this obviously very pressing issue. Niall nodded solemnly.

“I took that on board,” he responded.

“And he’s not particularly fond of brown eyes.”

“I’m not sure what colour this guy’s eyes are, but they’re not brown.”

“And tall. Louis likes men taller than him, not that that’s hard to find.”

“Hey!”

“This guy’s five-eleven. That okay?”

“That sounds perfect.”

Niall pushed himself up from his chair and strode towards Eleanor confidently, extending his hand in an authoritive way. 

“Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Calder,” he said smoothly, making Louis look on with shock as Eleanor twisted her hair around her finger – yes, _twisted her hair._

“You too, Mr Horan,” she responded (Louis couldn’t remember ever telling him Niall’s name. That was weird).

“Maybe we could continue this over dinner tomorrow night? Unless, of course, you were going to go out with that Max fellow again,” he said, rolling his eyes comically. Eleanor chuckled lightly.

“Well if I have an offer with you,” Eleanor said, somewhat seductively. Louis thought he was going to be sick. “I just might have to cancel with him.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Yes, Louis hated being the only one that was single. If Niall Horan could secure a 10 with that poor game, he could surely do so with his eyes closed.

“What could go wrong?” Niall asked after Eleanor had disappeared again. He was slightly pink, but overall calm and composed. “In a world filled with super-heroes, everything is perfect.”

And once again, Louis found himself disagreeing.

*

When it rained in New York City, it absolutely poured. It rained with such ferocity that Louis often considered whether the Bible had been slightly mistaken and in fact yet another flood would descend upon the world and wash away the majority of the human race. It rained with such passion and enthusiasm that it was almost as if the clouds above him were echoing his deep and wretched self pity; the monotonous _clip-clap_ of high heels dancing along the pavement, black umbrellas moving in union.

New York was a walker’s paradise. Sadly, Louis Tomlinson was not a walker. He was barely even a _mover,_ when he thought about it.

He flicked open a packet of cigarettes (moving from Doncaster to the city was a big adjustment; a twenty pack here was seven dollars. Seven fucking dollars for a habit that would kill him. Talk about capitalism) and tried desperately to light it, covering the tip with his hand. Usually he would’ve been smart enough to know that there was no conceivable way in which to walk whilst smoking in the pouring rain, but it had been a bad day already anyways, so what was the loss in making it worse?

The rain was turning into a somewhat sleet when he stepped into the cool, impersonal professionalism of his workplace. The entire front wall of the science labs were glass, so he could see everything he knew in a day through them; the walking people, the crying toddlers, the homeless beggars, the towering buildings constructed by midget humans. Louis supposed that, if he was the type of guy to write poems and shit like that, he would find some kind of beautiful depth in the view. Instead, he merely considered it briefly before continuing to scan his ID card and make his way to his cubicle.

As mentioned before, routine was the vain of Louis’ existence. The same man – Malik, he thinks his name was – sidestepped him in the lobby as he held open the door for himself, and in the same way as he did every other morning (because the man was dressed in an expensive black suit and he had never actually heard him talk, so Louis assumed he was important) he repressed the urge to say, ‘Hey, fuck you buddy’ and instead let out a long, drawn out sigh that made clear his displeasure, but in a polite way, so if this man was in fact his boss’ son or whatever he wouldn’t get thrown out on his ass.

Losing your job in New York was quite possibly the worst thing that could happen to you, but according to the majority of the colleagues in his office floor the utmost tragedy was that Iron Man had saved a woman from a burning building last night and no journalist managed to get a photo.

“Iron Man isn’t fucking real,” Louis complained to Eleanor as she passed over a chai latte (tall, non fat, tazo. Whatever the hell that means). “What point do you people not understand? He’s just a commercialised action movie hero used to boost film sales and inspire delusional people.”

“Hey there Mr Grumpy,” Eleanor chided, leaning up against Niall’s chair. Her hand rested lightly against his shoulder – probably the cause of his increasingly rosy cheeks. “There’s nothing wrong with believing in super-heroes.”

“Yeah, Lou,” Niall said, his words catching in his throat slightly. “There’s no need to be so cynical of everything.”

“I’m not _cynical,_ ” Louis said. Cynically.

“You definitely are,” Eleanor and Niall chimed at the same time, before clapping their palms together in a high five. Louis rolled his eyes.

That was all he needed. An Eleanor and Niall love match. His life would be a living hell.

“People who believe in super-heroes have something wrong with their rationalisation,” Louis said, sounding more like his university professor than he ever would’ve wanted to. “At least I have the intelligence to separate fact from fiction...”

“I’d like to think I’m intelligent,” Eleanor snapped. She did this thing where she said something with a slight edge to it – so microscopic that the ordinary passerby wouldn’t notice it – but Louis, having known her for so long, immediately picked up on. If he pulled her on it though, he seemed the paranoid bitch. There was no winning with Eleanor Calder. “And I believe in super-heroes.”

“You were probably the asshole kid in primary school,” Niall chuckled. He too was sipping on some coffee. Louis wasn’t quite sure why he was doing so; he kept screwing his face up in disgust after every sip.

“The asshole kid?” Louis repeated, raising an eyebrow.

Niall nodded.

“The asshole kid,” he said. “The one that told all the other kids Santa wasn’t real and crushed their tiny little hearts.”

To emphasise his point, he flung himself back on his chair dramatically. His coffee went all over the floor, narrowly missing both Louis and Eleanor’s designer shoes.

“Oops,” he said sheepishly, his face even redder than before. Eleanor ran into the next cubicle to grab some paper towels, exclaiming about ‘a waste of good coffee’ and ‘ridiculous Irish bumpkins’.

Louis caught a smile on his face, and he immediately got the impression that the entire charade was premeditated. He found himself marvelling at Niall just a little bit.

“So what do I have to do to stop being the ‘asshole kid’?” Louis asked, only slightly interested. The notebook in front of him – which was absolutely covered with inconceivably messy writing – lay abandoned for the second day in the room. He was absolutely no closer to reaching his epiphany on why super-heroes couldn’t possibly exist.

It was a simple theorem, or at least that’s what he originally thought. It seemed the logical thing to say; “Super-hero abilities are a thing of myth or legend, not conceivably possible in today’s world”. However, it turned out to be very difficult to prove, probably considering the lack of people willing to help him with his research and experiments.

Nobody wanted their illusions crushed. That’s why they refused to help.

“Come to Comic-Con with me,” Niall said, almost giddily, bouncing up and down on his seat. Eleanor returned armed with several rolls of kitchen roll and dropped them onto the floor, pushing the sheets over the stain half-heartedly with her foot. You could call Eleanor many things, but domestic wasn’t one of them.

“I would literally pay to see Louis going to any kind of Comic Con,” Eleanor laughed, giving up her attempt at cleaning within moments. Her own coffee cup was almost finished now, which meant that her mood would start rapidly going south.

Because Eleanor was willing to put money on it, Louis was even more determined to do it. “How much would you pay, exactly?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows at his friend.

She smirked at him irritatingly. “Twenty dollars.”

“Thirty,” Niall bartered.

“Twenty five,” Eleanor said.

“Fine,” Niall conceded. “So if I can get Louis to go to Comic Con...”

“You get twenty five dollars,” Eleanor explained coolly.

“And...” Niall said. He was wearing a devilish expression; Louis knew enough about him at this point to know what he was about to say. Apparently so did Eleanor, because she immediately went red.

“You have to kiss me,” he said finally.

“I think you’d have to do more than just get him to go to make me do that,” Eleanor laughed.

“Fair enough,” Niall nodded. The group fell into silence for a brief moment whilst he considered this. “What about I bring my guy – the one Lou will definitely love – to Comic Con, and if they end up getting together, like properly, _then_ you kiss me.”

Eleanor thought about his proposition. “Terms of the kiss,” she said finally.

“At least a minute long,” Niall said.

“Longest a minute and a half,” Eleanor confirmed.

“Including tongue.”

“... Fine, including tongue.”

“Do I get to touch the boob?”

“Absolutely not, sleaze-ball.”

Niall held out his hand, grinning from ear to ear (Louis didn’t understand how he could block out insults so easily. It was truly a gift).

“Well Eleanor Calder,” he said happily. “We’ve got ourselves a bet.”

And Louis was duly horrified.

*

Niall got his twenty five dollars as was expected - Louis, after all, was far too interested in what this mystery boy would be like to pass up the opportunity to meet him, even if it was at a crappy convention designed for ‘believers’ - but whether or not he would receive the kiss (probably the most action he would’ve had in months) remained to be seen.

About ten minutes into the long, long wait (seriously, was that person dressed up as a flamingo? Who dresses up like a fucking flamingo wearing a thong?) Louis felt sure that anything on the earth would be a better alternative to attending Comic Con on that cold, almost-winter-but-not-quite day. Skydiving? Definitely. Being shot? Probably. Spontaneously combusting of boredom? More entertaining than hearing the teenage girls in front of him squeal about how beautiful Iron Man must be under his mask and how Captain America could do anything he wanted to them with those hands of his.

He wondered if these girls’ parents were aware of the vile adjectives that came out of their daughters’ mouths. Louis himself was decidedly terrified of what humans were becoming, mostly because he agreed with the majority of what they were saying.

He was going to hell.

“Once we get in it’ll get better,” Eleanor comforted him, pressing her skinny fingers into his upper arm, leaving little white marks where their skin touched. Louis resisted the urge to move away. He wasn’t really one for closeness, or touching. Like, at all. “I swear. Look, Niall’s having fun.”

She was speaking the truth. Niall was decked out in a full sized Spiderman costume, his face painted in a mixture of black and red and white so he looked like some fucked up American flag had barfed all over his skin, and had a smile on his face that could rival Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman (and no, Louis hadn’t watched the movie five times in the past three months. Where would you ever get that idea?).

“Niall doesn’t count,” Louis said, somewhat grumpily. The queue moved forward slightly, and when Louis didn’t move immediately a sharp shove came from behind him. He turned around to glare at the source of the push – a relatively attractive asshole with arms that nearly popped out of his shirt, dressed as Captain America in surprising accuracy – and then looked at the people beside him, who either didn’t notice his apparent rudeness or didn’t give a shit. “Do you mind?” Louis snapped.

“Sorry,” the boy said immediately, but he was smiling, so he wasn’t really sorry at all. Fucker. “Didn’t mean to, swear.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said, turning back round to Eleanor, who was giving him a glare that clearly said, ‘Shut the hell up before you embarrass me again’.

(That was one time. One time he got thrown out of a concert for accidentally cussing out the main act. It wasn’t his fault. That guy had been an asshole too.)

“Maybe you should take a leaf out of Niall’s book,” Eleanor suggested, her voice softening slightly on Niall’s name. Louis faked puking into his brochure, resulting in a punch from both Niall and Eleanor.

“Ouch,” he said, rubbing both of his arms. “Rude.”

“You should really work on your attitude,” Niall teased, poking him in the side. Louis shied away from his touch; he was really quite ticklish, and he didn’t want Niall to figure out this embarrassing fact. He would ultimately use it against him infinite times in the workplace, and he’d never be able to live it down. “The guy I’m introducing you to prefers happy dudes.”

“You haven’t told us much about him,” Louis said. Eleanor shuffled beside him, so he reworded his statement. “You haven’t told _me_ much about him.”

“What do you want to know?” Niall asked, bouncing on the soles of his feet as the queue moved another centimetre forward. Literally. They were going to be here for hours, and Louis had _Orange is the New Black_ recorded for tonight that he could watch alone, curled up with a family sized bowl of Ben and Jerry’s.

“His favourite colour,” Louis suggested, shrugging his shoulders. “Where he went to school, what he does for a living, his type of guys. Anything, really. I’m going in blind here Ni.”

“Okay,” Niall said, scrunching his nose together kind of adorably. It was hard not to love him, despite how hard Louis tried. “Blue or orange, I think, for some sappy reason I never listen to. He went to high school with me, so there’s that. He’s sort of in between jobs at the moment, but I think he’s either a barista or an apprentice lawyer. Not sure which.”

“Well that explains a lot, Niall,” Louis said sarcastically. “Thanks for that.”

“No problem,” Niall said, grinning brightly (he was either completely oblivious or impermeable. Remarkable). “And his type, that I know. He likes funny people with a nice smile. A nice person, he always says. It’s just the fact that you’re with them...”

“It’s the whole thing,” Louis finished absentmindedly, twiddling his thumb against the bottom of his jumper. He was beginning to worry about his entire choice in clothing; he had always been told red suited him, but maybe it was too bright for Comic Con. Maybe his jeans were too tight. Maybe they weren’t tight _enough._ Oh holy shit.

“Exactly,” Niall laughed, his eyes widening slightly. “You’re finishing each other’s sentences and you haven’t even met yet. I am an amazing matchmaker.”

Louis wanted to protest, but then a vendor came past selling light up Hulk figurines, and obviously he had to hunt money out of his back pocket to buy Niall one. Obviously.

“It flashes rainbow polka-dots!” Niall exclaimed, thrusting it in front of Louis’ face and wiggling it around so his head began to get light at the flashing. “You’re the best-best friend ever!”

He was about to ask, ‘Who said we were friends?’ but then he looked at Niall’s face beaming with delight and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

*

Louis thought that he could trust Eleanor. He honestly and truly did. He thought that he could believe her when she said, multiple times during the car ride here and the wait to get in, that it would get _better._

He should’ve _known_ better.

It was like a mother saying that injections would only hurt a little bit, or that when you get dumped it’ll only sting for a while. She doesn’t tell you about the dull ache that follows for ages after both of these events. She doesn’t tell you about the tears that’ll run down your face each time you think of them for months afterwards. She doesn’t tell you about how Trent is a complete and utter dick face but still considers himself too good for you, and she definitely doesn’t tell you that that’s probably exactly what Niall’s friend will think of you as well.

He was going to be sick, or faint, or die of heat exhaustion, or all three. He swears, it was almost as bad as the nerves before the night of the formal in his high school, or the first day he moved to New York, which was pathetic because he didn’t even _know_ the guy. He was probably going to be average, he’d kiss him a bit, Niall would get his Eleanor fix for the next fifty years and then Louis would finally be the one to end a relationship. He even had the break-up script all written out and ready.

Or, on the other hand, this boy could turn out to be a Greek god and suck all of the life’s energy out of Louis and transport him into a world that he didn’t particularly like visiting of ‘I can think of nothing but you’ or ‘Nothing about you isn’t perfect’ or ‘I hate Niall being right but just this once he was, he definitely was, because you’re amazing’.

As long as Louis didn’t watch Titanic with him, he would be fine.

Titanic was a sure sign that you were falling for someone, in his humble opinion. Nobody watches Titanic for the fun of it; they watch it because they’re in love or in pain. Fair enough, it was usually the latter in Louis’ case.

Sue him.

His mind was all over the place. He was going from worst case scenario (he could be a perverted weirdo who would follow Louis around and need a restraining order to get rid of) to best case scenario (they get married to the tune of ‘Talk Dirty to Me’ and Niall twerks along the aisle) so much so that he couldn’t even stop to bask in the overpriced goodness of manufactured heroes. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything against them because he was so exhausted.

“How long have we walked?” he asked, a frown forming in between his eyebrows. Eleanor looked down at her watch.

“Four hours,” she answered.

“Wasn’t aware you could measure distance in hours,” Louis muttered under his breath, but Eleanor either didn’t hear or pretended not to. He supposed it was for the best; if she had reacted to every single bitchy thing he ever said, they wouldn’t have even become friends.

“I think he’s coming now,” Niall said, peering down at Eleanor’s wrist as well. “He said he’d be getting off work around five.”

“So remind me again why we had to come at ten o-fucking-clock in the morning?” Louis groaned, trailing his feet along the ground. This was the first day in a couple of months he had gone back to wearing his ordinary clothes, and it felt pretty good, to be honest, apart from the fact that the entire front of his Vans were now torn out from the travelling. And they were his new ones, too.

“Because he has a fast pass, and we don’t,” Niall responded, as if that should’ve been obvious to someone who had never even _entertained_ the idea of attending a Comic Con, never mind lining up early in order to get good seats at one. “Besides, it’s not that bad, right?”

“I would rather get smashed in by the Hulk than have to see one more scantily clad Thor girl.”

Niall faked shock. “But they’re the best part!” he exclaimed. Eleanor rolled her eyes behind them, but didn’t say anything else. She probably knew trying to argue with Niall was pointless.

“I’m gay, Ni, remember?” Louis said softly. “And as far as I’m concerned, Eleanor’s straight as a ruler.”

“Indeed I am.”

“Therefore, you’re the only one who’s actually having any fun here at the moment.”

“I’m having fun,” Eleanor pointed out, hitting Louis in the side with her hip as she walked. She was no longer decked in the sophisticated monochrome dress she had came in, but was now wearing a plastic hammer around her waist and a red cape draped over her shoulders. It ruined the whole ‘futuristic model’ thing she had going on. “You’re just a grumpy sod.”

“Well you’re a nerd,” Louis responded, rather childishly, and Eleanor stuck her tongue out at him for good measure. In the background, all that could be heard was a loud, singular laugh.

Louis really needed new friends.

“Are there any places to eat in this shithole?” Louis asked, squinting into the distance. The stalls and vendors seemed to go on for miles; there was no end to the amount of crappy merchandise being bought for extraordinary prices. He wondered briefly how much money he could make selling Happy Meal toys here for twenty dollars apiece. Maybe that could be his new career plan.

“I think I saw a chippy somewhere back there,” Niall said, gesturing widely far away from where they were standing. Louis rolled his eyes. “Not sure though. Can we not wait a while for lunch though? There’s another talk on and I really don’t want to miss it...”

“I’m fucking starving.”

“Alright snippy,” Eleanor said, her fingers brushing against the waistband of Niall’s trousers to comfort him. His face promptly went beetroot; no longer simply red in her presence, now turning a light shade of purple. “You go get food then. I’m going with Ni to see this preview.”

“It’s of the new Iron Man movie!” Niall exclaimed.

“What is this, the seventh now?” Louis asked with boredom lacing his syllables. Ever since that one sighting six months ago that was plastered all over the New York Times, the public had been going crazy for Iron Man, so much so that even Marvel couldn’t keep up. Now, the franchise was spawning out onto other platforms such as Dreamwork’s and Universal, all of them battling to create the ultimate hero. “Aren’t they getting old?”

Eleanor scowled at him. “Iron Man is a masterpiece. Now shoo before I literally whack you with this newspaper.”

Louis, feeling somewhat chastised and red in the face, obediently scuttled off into the crowd.

“Do you have your phone?” came a yell in an Irish accent from the middle of the bustle. Louis stuck his iPhone up in the air – probably not the smartest thing to do in New York, but hey – and Niall nodded contently. “Don’t get mugged!”

“I’ll try not to!” Louis responded, pushing his way past several brightly coloured costumes and their human companions. He briefly wondered how many people were feeling just about as done as he was in that moment; judging from the expressions of the passersby, Comic Con wasn’t feeling like much fun for anybody. It was far too hot even though it was winter, too much carbon dioxide bouncing around to be healthy for anyone.

All around him were whispers of, “I wonder if Captain America will show up today?” and responses of, “Hawk-Eye might. I swear I saw him out my window the other night...” and exclamations of “Oh if I only had a brain!” (but perhaps that was Louis’ own internal monologue leaking through). He wanted to scream that it was all a scam, that they were delusional and somewhat stupid and should really consider getting either a life or a psychiatrist, when his eyes rested on the blue sign of a chip shop, and he felt a large weight lift off his shoulders. He had been telling the truth to Eleanor when he said he was starving; his stomach was rumbling uncomfortably, and along with the frantic thrashing of the butterflies it was probably reflecting onto his face. He wanted to look happy and pain free when he met the boy, whoever he might be.

Why hadn’t he asked what the boy’s name was? He’d literally asked his favourite _colour_ before he’d asked his fucking name. Seriously, Tomlinson, get a fucking grip.

“What do you wanna have?” the man behind the counter asked. He had black hair slicked down across his head, his scalp visible through the strands, and he was wearing a small navy apron that strained against his white t-shirt. He looked as tired as Louis felt.

“Just a burger please,” Louis said, passing over a dollar he found at the bottom of his pocket.

“You want onions?” the man asked. Louis, thinking back to a report he had read the previous week on the dubiousness of New York fast food outlets, shook his head no. The man nodded, as if commending him on his decision, and bobbed his head in the direction of several metal stools. “You can sit while you wait.”

Perhaps it was the England in him, but Louis found himself waiting for an ‘if you want’ to be tagged onto the end of that sentence. When it wasn’t, he frowned slightly and sat down on the uncomfortably tall bar stool, having to jump on his tiptoes to get up onto it (he praised the Lord above that Eleanor wasn’t there to see it; she would never have shut up with the short jokes).

There was a New York Times lying on the counter beside him. At least 50% of the articles were relating to Comic Con and whether any of the heroes would make a miraculous and unprecedented appearance, something that would probably cause Niall to orgasm at the thought, so he heard nothing but the low mumble of another customer ordering. He only really looked up when he heard the loud and distinct lyrics of Nickel-back’s ‘Rock-Star’.

Now, that song was the bomb in about 2008, when Louis was still wearing thick rimmed glasses and had to avoid the bigger rugby lads at school for fear of getting his shit kicked in (he had been told by several people he was somewhat attractive, and he wanted to keep his face that way) but this was _2014._ And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the boy wasn’t even singing the widely known and popularised first verses and the chorus; no, this boy was displaying inordinate amounts of knowledge in his Nickel-back lyrics, to the extent that Louis found himself marvelling in the hidden meanings of the song he got his first make-out session to. (Of course, it was to a girl, and they got their braces caught together, but overall it was a pretty heart pounding experience if only for the pain induced.)

This performer – for that must’ve been what he was, his voice was like butter melting on a piece of toast, the kind of sound you could fall asleep listening to if given half the chance – was wearing skinny jeans that clung almost uncomfortably to the curves of his legs, emphasising his thin frame. He was wearing white Converse on his feet, scuffled more at the front than anywhere else as if he tripped more often than he walked, and a grey t-shirt with a red heart decal on the right of his chest. Louis’ eyes drifted upwards to the boy’s face, which was framed by little ringlets that fell out past his beanie, and felt his heart beat more prominently in his chest.

He was beautiful, and he was singing, and Louis found himself wondering if Niall had paid this guy to see if Louis would jump him in the middle of a grungy chip shop.

It took another couple of moments – and no, Louis hadn’t been staring at the perfection of this boy’s jaw-line for that time – for him to realise that the boy was bopping his head to the music as well, and also for the thin wire hanging against his body to register in Louis’ mind as earphones. A crease appeared in between Louis’ eyebrows, and he set the newspaper down on the counter once more and waved his hand in the boy’s direction.

God. He really shouldn’t have done that.

This boy was one of those _intense_ people; the ones that looked at you with eyes that saw nothing and everything in between, that made you feel naked even when you were fully dressed. He had green eyes, or maybe they were grey, and they changed in different lights, like a kaleidoscope of colours and textures, or an ocean clouded by algae. Louis thought that they were beautiful, in the vaguely strange way that he always found things he couldn’t quite understand, like the expanse of the universe or the endlessness of the hydrological cycle. He felt himself falling from a great precipice, but falling into what, he remained unaware.

He lifted his hand – a hand with long, slender fingers that made goosebumps appear all over Louis’ arms – and took one earphone from his ear, raising an eyebrow in Louis’ direction. He pointed at his own muscular torso, as if asking, “Me?”

“You realise you’re singing out loud, right?” Louis asked, trying desperately to keep his voice level and not betray the strain of emotions he was feeling in the pit of his stomach. The boy narrowed his eyes in Louis’ direction momentarily, before suddenly seeming to realise what he was saying.

A flood of colour swept up from his exposed chest to his forehead, reminding Louis somewhat of a strawberry. Immediately, a feeling of guilt rested upon Louis heavily, blocking out anything other than regret that he hadn’t just kept his mouth shut.

“I mean you were good, like,” Louis stumbled. His own cheeks were heating up. They were bound to look like a right pair of beetroots. “Not saying that you weren’t. I was just wondering if you...” He inhaled sharply. “If you knew.”

The boy, now seeming to have composed himself, was smiling with casual amusement. “I didn’t know,” he said. His speaking voice was even deeper than when he sang. “Thanks for telling me.”

“You’re welcome,” Louis responded, and when the boy smirked and turned away he allowed himself to cringe in embarrassment.

Smooth, Tomlinson, smooth.

“I’m Louis, by the way,” he blurted, unable to stop himself from talking. The boy removed his earphones once again and grinned at him.

He grinned so easily. Probably because he looked adorable doing so.

“Harry,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Louis.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Louis said, relaxing his shoulders. He hadn’t realised they were tense until then. “Are you at Comic Con too? I don’t usually come to these types of things, but my mate said he was going to introduce me to someone here and he kind of put a bet on me liking them and so I felt kind of obligated to come, you know? Especially when he went to so much trouble to get me here and all.”

“Is that so?” the boy asked, still grinning, as if he knew something Louis didn’t.

“I mean, he’s really annoying and he kind of pisses me off, but he’s an alright mate at the end of the day. I suppose Eleanor is as well. That’s my other friend – I work with her. I work in a science lab, I’m an astrophysicist. Oh God, that sounds like I’m blowing my own horn.”

“Not at all,” Harry responded. He had moved from relaxing against the wall on the other side of the chip shop to lingering around the stool beside Louis’. His closer proximity was only making it that much harder to breathe easily. “It’s quite interesting, actually.”

“Not really,” Louis gushed. “I mean, it is interesting, but most of the time I’m just staying at my desk filling in paperwork and all. It isn’t really what I expected when I applied for uni.”

“What _were_ you expecting?” Harry questioned, and God, he really looked like he cared. Louis found himself melting, and even as the greasy haired man pressed the burger into his slightly sweaty hands he found himself drifting back beside Harry, as if he was the pole and Harry the magnet. “Do you want to change the world or something? Tell me you want to change the world.”

“I want to make a world where people can believe what they hear,” Louis settled on. That didn’t make him sound like a cunt; rather, like a vaguely disinteresting science nerd. Just the way he liked it.

“So you don’t believe in super-heroes,” Harry said, lifting up his brown paper bag from the counter and waving goodbye to the man. The two made their way to the door, bouncing against each other slightly as they walked.

“Where the hell did you get that from?” Louis spluttered. His burger remained untouched between his fingers. After all, he didn’t want to get bun in between his teeth or bad breath, not when there was the slightest chance of befriending this epiphany.

Harry shrugged his shoulders, infuriatingly nonchalant. “I can read people,” he said simply, his eyes widening slightly as he did so.

Louis couldn’t help but laugh. And it wasn’t like a normal laugh, like how he did when Niall put a whoopee cushion on the boss’ seat and recorded it for Snapchat. Rather, it was like a momentary explosion. He found himself embarrassed once again.

“I dunno really,” Harry said slowly. He spoke at the pace Louis’ thoughts had reduced to in his company; it was all calm nuances and low decibels. And Louis really, really liked it. “You just look like a non-believer.”

“You make me sound so boring,” Louis said. Another untouched burger was being passed between long fingered hands. Probably for the best – New York burgers weren’t the safest.

When he glanced upwards, Harry’s eyes were sparkling, quite literally. Like a Disney princess. Or a mermaid. The way he looked at Louis made him feel sort of like he was Iron Man.

“I don’t think you’re boring, Louis,” he said.

“You don’t even know me,” he protested.

“No,” Harry said (was he blushing slightly, or was it just the reflection of the Flash outfit a passerby was wearing?). “But I don’t need to know you. Like I said, I can read people.”

Louis looked at him for a few seconds. “You’re a nerd.”

Following a brief, sporadic laugh not unlike Louis’ mere moments before, Harry pulled a face that he supposed was meant to look mildly affronted but was instead just entirely endearing. “Well you’re a mean smart person,” he said, grinning insanely wide.

“You’re just jealous,” Louis teased, sticking his tongue out in the other boy’s direction. Harry shrugged.

“Perhaps,” he said. “After all, those jeans.”

“What’s wrong with my jeans?” he asked, looking down at the denim pulled tightly over his thighs.

“Nothing,” Harry stated softly. “I was just about to say that they’re absolutely fucking-tastic.”

Before Louis had a chance to come back with some deliciously flirtatious statement – because he had one planned out and everything, one that would’ve definitely gotten him laid – he walked full on into Asshole from the Queue; knock-off Captain America himself.

“Watch where you’re going, ass-hat,” Louis snapped, even though he was very much the one who had walked into him. Asshole – who was at least a foot taller than him and three wider – looked down at him with much the same expression as one would deliver to an ant on the floor they had accidentally stepped on; a vague mixture of pity and annoyance that it would leave a stain on their shoe. Harry watched from the side, his face showing nothing but slight amusement at the situation Louis found himself presented with. Louis found himself hoping that it was endearment that made him appear that way rather than full on jest.

“Very sorry, truly,” Asshole said, grinning in a way that flashed Louis back to the queue (it also reminded him of something else; someone didn’t just forget that smile, and he knew he’d seen it somewhere). “How can I ever make it up to you?”

Louis, feeling significantly chastised but refusing to show that he was so, frowned in the man’s direction. “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he snarled, and then he sidestepped Asshole with surprising accuracy and grace and scuttled away down the aisle, Harry tagging along sharp on his heels.

“That was terrible,” Harry said. His eyes were filled with tears, and Louis was about to ask what was wrong when he realised he was laughing. “You’re about as intimidating as a squirrel.”

“Squirrels can be dangerous!” Louis protested, pouting. “They can spread rabies, and bite, and scratch with their little claws and stare you down with creepy black eyes...”

“Oh yes, because the Avengers themselves will be brought to a halt by a squirrel infestation,” Harry chuckled. “Don’t pout,” he followed, poking Louis in the cheek with a long, slender fore-finger (Louis must’ve developed a hand fetish within the past five minutes. Or perhaps a Harry fetish?). “You’re gorgeous when you smile.”

“Are you saying I’m ugly when I don’t?” Louis asked, but he couldn’t quite keep a straight face as he was doing so. Harry was contagious, but not like a rash. More like restlessness in a classroom two minutes before the bell, when a class who ordinarily hated the sight of each other joined in a collective effort to convince the teacher to let them leave earlier.

“Not at all,” Harry responded almost instantaneously. “In fact, you’re pretty sexy when you’re angry.”

 Several milliseconds after that comment, Louis crashed straight into a stall selling Marvel comics and caused at least fifty dollars of damage.

Observation: Harry Styles was going to be a goddamn problem.

*

Louis had decided long ago, around the time that his voice had broken, that fancying boys wasn’t really worth all the heartache it brought.

I mean, you spend a couple of months thinking of nothing but the tux you’d wear when you pick them up for a date and the way in which their lips would feel on top of yours. You spend a couple of weeks considering how you ended up this far in, and exactly why you care so fucking much. You spend a couple of days convincing yourself that they’ll never see you in such a light, that you’re completely and utterly deluded, and you’re almost believing it when they talk to you and the whole damn cycle starts up again, repeating over and over until you either move country or date them and break up.

He was either going to marry this boy Harry, or he was never going to speak to him again. Those were really his only options, because somebody simply couldn’t spend their time in Harry Styles’ company and not expect themselves to fall completely head over heels for the guy. He had the kind of mouth you watched when he spoke, the kind of eyes that changed with each conflicting emotion, the dimples that made you want to make him smile every second of every day. And it wouldn’t be hard to do so, Louis thought, considering how fucking smiley Harry had been in his company that day.

A quick “you got anywhere to be?” and a text to Niall later and the boys had ended up postponing both of their meetings for a couple of hours so that they could explore the convention together. Apparently Harry was going to meet up with his friend that day as well, but Louis found himself caring less and less about the mystery boy Niall was to set him up with.

In his mind, nobody could really compare to this grey eyed wonder. And his ass wasn’t half bad either, kind of small and petite, like most beautiful things.

Harry wasn’t exactly a _believer,_ or at least that’s what Louis picked up from him as they wandered aimlessly through the hundreds of stalls, barely looking at the wares, instead focused solely on each other. In fact, Louis could hardly remember what it was they talked about; conversation moved so swiftly between them, a coursing river, and Harry was so dazzling that everything was becoming a bit of a mess to be honest. Like a sun ray peeking out from behind a hurricane, or a beach torn apart by summer storms.

Harry liked the Beatles, and Coldplay, and Elvis, which made him definitely a hipster. His favourite colours were orange and blue, because they reminded him of a trip to Majorca when he was younger when he spent the nights watching the sun go down over the crisp cyan of the sea and how poetically beautiful he found it (Louis felt something about this register in his mind, but he shrugged it off, because Harry was giggling over a wind up Iron Man toy and it was really quite adorable).

He had six ten feet (“You know what that means,” he had wiggled his eyebrows at Louis. Louis found it difficult to not say something entirely inappropriate back). He plays badminton and tennis, but only with his friends Alexa and Lou. “I’m not particularly good at it, to be honest,” he revealed sheepishly. He walked with a slight hunch in his back – gained through his years working as a paper boy back in Cheshire – and with pigeon toes, as if he wanted the world to swallow him up whole. (Louis just wanted to kiss him all over, to be honest.)

“I can teach you,” Louis suggested. In his hands remained the now empty burger packet and a few brochures with gaudy pictures of super-heroes on the front. Iron Man seemed to be the front runner in these magazines; perhaps it was the secrecy that shrouded his heroism, unlike Tony Stark of the comics, or maybe it was just because women were convinced he was the sexiest man on earth underneath the mask that drew people in. “I’m quite the sportsman myself, you know.”

“That would be nice,” Harry grinned, and then he went on to tell Louis that if he had a superpower, it would be to time travel. “Think of the possibilities!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air, narrowly missing the long narrow nose of a nearby vendor. Louis snuffled a laugh and murmured an apology as Harry repeated muffled ‘sorry’ over and over again.

“If I had a super-power,” Louis thought for a moment, after they’d managed to run away to a suitable distance from the angry Indian man, “I’d like to fly, I think. Just to drop stuff on people and make their lives a hell.”

“I think you’d be a super-villain rather than a hero,” Harry mused. “You just seem the type. All handsome and rugged and cynical.”

“I’ll have you know many people _like_ handsome and rugged and cynical,” Louis huffed.

“I know,” Harry smirked. “I’m one of them.”

(He really had to stop saying things like that, lest the majority of Comic Con fall prey to the clumsiness of Louis’ adoration.)

Harry had hay-fever. He had a hamster when he was seven called Hamster. He thought ‘21’ by Adele was the single best album in the duration of music. He loved sappy romantic comedies (sadly, Titanic was on the list of his top five. Shit).

It was as if Harry was the hottest pop star on the block and Louis was the journalist that popped up at the beginning of his career to ask him a whole bunch of random questions that fans would probably look up for years afterwards. ‘101 Facts About Harry Styles’(he was pretty sure he knew even more than that, and definite that he liked the sound of that article).

“You know,” Harry said finally as they collapsed into a seat beside the food court, both of their feet burning with the strains of walking many miles. “As much as I’m enjoying spending time with you...”

“Enjoying?” Louis repeated.

“Revelling in your company,” Harry corrected. Louis nodded in satisfaction, and Harry continued talking. “I really do need to meet up with my mate at some stage though.”

“Yeah, I probably should do that too,” Louis mused. “He’ll be so pissed at me if I don’t show up to meet this lad he’s bringing along with him.”

“We could walk together?” Harry suggested, standing up from the seat again. Louis groaned as he stood up, feeling the burning in his thighs. How someone with such long thin legs could keep walking for such a long time was baffling to him. “I’m meeting up with mine just outside the entrance.”

“Same here,” Louis said. “Walking together sounds good.”

Sleeping together also sounded good, but Harry wasn’t suggesting that, so he guessed walking would do.

Baby steps.

Surprisingly, the walk back to the entrance was shorter than that to the food court (the hall went in a circle. Who knew) and Louis found himself wishing that it had been the five miles he’d already travelled that day. Harry made awful things better. It was a gift.

“There’s my mate there,” Harry said, peering out over the heads of the dispersing crowd. It was almost five o’clock at night now, and the convention was beginning to wind to a close. Louis knew that Niall would be annoyed that he’d dumped him and Eleanor to go with this guy he’d only just met – or perhaps he would be happy, being left with his crush? – but he would get over it.

“I see mine too,” Louis exclaimed, jumping up onto his tiptoes. Niall’s bleached blond hair and Eleanor’s newly purchased Minnie Mouse ears were visible over the other people. “Will we be able to get through?”

“Positivity, dear Lewis,” Harry said with a glint in his eye. “You doubt my ability to make people crumble to my will.”

“I think you could challenge Adolf Hitler for charisma,” Louis muttered, but Harry either didn’t hear him or was too focused on pushing his way through to respond. As expected, a five foot eleven boy made it easier through the crowd than a five foot seven boy, and so they ended up standing in front of Niall within minutes.

“Louis, where the fuck were – “ he began, but upon noticing Harry his eyebrows furrowed into a stern frown. “Harry?”

Now it was Harry’s turn to look confused. “You know Louis?”

“You two know _each other_?” Louis spluttered. Of all the people for Niall to know, why the hell did it have to be this epiphany? He was definitely going to ruin everything by being all embarrassing now. He was probably – definitely – going to get back at Louis for screwing off with this guy by telling him about that one time he got his head stuck in the toilet bowl during a particularly bad hangover.

Eleanor hovered around in the background. “Is this Harry, Ni?”she asked.

“Am I the only one out of the loop here?” Louis questioned angrily, placing a hand on his hip in what was a pathetically juvenile way. Fortunately, as it always did, it meant that the brunt of the group’s attention was drawn towards him, so that he had three pairs of eyes looking at him with confusion.

“This is the guy,” Niall said, gesturing widely towards Harry. “That I was going to set you up with.”

He then turned to Harry. “And this is the guy,” he said, thumping Louis on the back. “That I told you about. You know - the cocky scientist asshole.”

Harry looked over at Louis with his mouth dropped open and his face almost comically aghast. Louis mustn’t have appeared any less shocked, because Eleanor giggled incessantly in the background, commenting on their expressions.

“Now that,” she said, smiling as she swung her arm around Louis’ waist “is what I call fate.”

Louis had to agree.

*

When Louis accidentally bumped into Harry again on the second day of Comic Con, it was a total coincidence.

It wasn’t as if he called in sick to his work that day, coughing up his lungs in what he believed to be a very convincing way, taken the subway halfway across New York and ended up searching for long brown curls for a good hour and more _just_ so that he could aimlessly walk around with a boy he didn’t even know. That would be pathetic.

*cough*

Anyways, he was there now, and Niall had exploded his Whatsapp with hundreds of messages that he’d have to spent at least fifty minutes sorting through when he got home that night. The most recent were these:

 _Annoying Irish Twat:_ ill have you know that I bought donuts SPECIFICALLY for your shapely arse today & you dont even fucking show up

 _Annoying Irish Twat:_ what kind of best friend does that

 _Annoying Irish Twat:_ wait i know where you are

 _Annoying Irish Twat:_ YOURE FUCKING HARRY AND IM GETTING KISSED BY ELEANOR HOLY JESUS EVERYTHINGS HAPPENING AT ONCE

 _Annoying Irish Twat:_ id like to thank anne styles for being a fine piece of ass and producing another fine piece of ass to get louis to loosen up a bit

 _Annoying Irish Twat:_ get it? loosen up like your ass when harry gets near it

 _Annoying Irish Twat:_ you two better be screwing right now and thats why youre not responding

“Who’s that?” Harry asked, smiling softly with the corners of his mouth. He was looking even more beautiful today than he had the one before, if that was possible.

Louis wondered if he was the type of person you could never get bored of looking at; it seemed that you could fall in love with every little piece of him, from the small sliver of freckles on his exposed shoulders when he raised his arms to the dimple in his cheeks.

“Just Niall,” Louis said hastily, slightly irritated that even when he wasn’t here Niall was still taking Harry’s attention away from him. Yesterday had been bad enough; Niall had been so talkative when they all met up that Louis hadn’t been able to let another word out edgewise.

“Oh,” Harry said. He wasn’t wearing a beanie now – Louis had commented that it was a shame whilst secretly praising the Lord that he could now admire the beauty of Harry’s hair uninterrupted – and his hair was shining underneath the thick lighting of the convention. People in varying costumes – admittedly less than there had been the previous day, the buzz seemed to have died down somewhat – were debating whether the super-heroes would _ever_ show up, some of them going as far as to say they weren’t real (how long had it taken them to realise that, Louis wondered). None of them mattered. “What was he saying?”

“He wants us to sleep together,” Louis said, without really thinking, and instead of going red Harry turned a pleasantly beautiful shade of pink, reminiscent perhaps of Snow White’s cheeks, and laughed.

“And what do you think of that?” Harry asked. Louis looked over at him with raised eyebrows, and when he didn’t back down as would’ve been expected, Louis swallowed thickly and answered.

“I think that would be fantastic,” he admitted. “I mean, you in those skinny jeans,” he said, gesturing downwards. Harry was dimpling, and it was amazing. “Who wouldn’t love you?”

“You’d be surprised,” Harry mumbled. “But I think it would be pretty fantastic to sleep with you too.”

“Is this a proposition? Because I didn’t bring condoms.”

Harry let out one short, sharp burst of unprecedented laughter, making Louis feel kind of invincible, like if Harry found him funny then the world would ultimately succumb to his amazing comedy skills. Or maybe it just meant that Harry liked him, and perhaps that was better than world domination anyways.

“I am not some common _whore_ , Tomlinson,” Harry teased, bumping his hip against Louis’ stomach (because he was a great oaf and Louis was a tiny pixie feeling very sexy walking beside someone so gorgeous).

“Well neither am I, Styles,” Louis quipped. “But for you, I might just make an exception.”

“Bathroom?”

“Anytime.”

“Public spaces?”

“Behind a tree, if you wanted.”

“In a bush?”

“Don’t you have hay-fever?”

“I’d battle through.”

“Pop antihistamines between thrusts.”

And then Louis was doing the actions, and they were both laughing, and people were looking at them as if they were strange but for once in his life Louis didn’t _care_ what peoples’ internal monologue concerning him was. Harry was the only one who mattered, and he was giggling so much that tears were appearing in the corner of sparkling eyes and Louis was pretty sure his ribs were digging into his oesophagus and he couldn’t quite breathe properly when he looked at Harry and it was all so beautiful and perfect and it was only the second goddamn day.

Everything was simpler, as if the world was shining and new like it had been born again out of a lotus flower, and Louis didn’t even mind that there had been a sighting of Iron Man a few streets away and the majority of convention goers had dashed out of the hall in pursuit of their hero because it just meant that he was more alone with Harry than he had ever been before (he was considering how he would feel if it was ever just the two of them; his heart was already fit to bursting in his chest and Harry wasn’t even touching him).

“I notice you’re not sprinting away at the first mention of metal,” Harry commented as they sat down against a wall, holding a couple Lego Black Widow figures in between their forefingers and thumbs and playing with them together absentmindedly. “What’s up with that?”

“I’ve told you before,” Louis said. “Or rather, you knew before. I’m not really into all that.”

“Doesn’t it fascinate you though?” Harry asked, his eyes sparkling, and God, Louis loved the way he said ‘fascinate’. He kind of wanted Harry to say it about him; that his interest on Louis and Louis alone was enough to convince him to write sonnets, or perhaps 154 of them (shoot him, he was a Shakespeare nerd in high school and has never quite gotten over the romance of it all).

He could definitely compare Harry to a summer’s day, he thinks.

“Not in the way it does other people,” Louis responded. Harry looked at him intently for a moment – but then again, when didn’t he look at him intently – and then turned his attention back to the Black Widow figure. “I mean, I’m kind of doing this experiment right now about it, but I don’t think many will like it.”

“Let me guess,” Harry said, not quite meeting his eyes. “You’re trying to disprove the existence of... of...”

“Super-heroes?” Louis offered. “Yes, yes I am. And why’s that a problem?”

“Don’t you think you should spend your time trying to find out something new rather than destroying things that make people happy?” Harry asked.

“Super-heroes aren’t real.”

“What makes you think that, though?” he said, glancing upwards. He looked so beautiful, Louis was quite awestruck that such a human could exist at all, enough so that it overcast the mild irritation he felt welling up inside of him at Harry’s casual questioning of everything he had ever worked for and represented. “Honestly.”

When Louis didn’t answer, Harry filled the silence by reiterating, “Be honest with me, Lou.”

And because he called him Lou, he obliged.

“Because they’ve never fucking helped me, that’s why.”

Harry straightened his hunched back in self satisfaction, and wiggled the figurine in Louis’ face childishly.

“And that, my friends, is the root of all scientific evil,” he announced proudly. Even then, Louis found himself suffering from an insane need to kiss him. He settled for punching him in the shoulder; lightly, though, so he never left a bruise on him that wasn’t created out of love.

Weak, he thought. Harry Styles made him weak.

*

“ _You’re in love with him, you want to marry him,”_ Niall sang out pathetically loud whilst Harry was in the bathroom.

Despite Louis’ persuasions not to come to Comic Con, Niall had dragged Eleanor with him to ‘prove’ that Harry and Louis were hanging out together and obviously in love (which was ridiculous, it had been two days. Even if it did feel like all the important questions had been answered two seconds in) and therefore reap his reward of her lips on his.

“Stop quoting Sandra Bullock,” Louis snapped, leaning against the slightly sticky wall. He didn’t want to think about what had made it that texture. “You’re ruining one of my favourite romantic comedy actresses.”

“Oh please,” Eleanor said, rolling her eyes. “If anything, he makes her better.”

Niall stuck out his tongue at Louis, making him think for about the hundredth time that week that he really needed new friends. Too bad there was nowhere in New York to go and meet new people (okay, so there was more than anywhere else in the world, but Louis was uncharacteristically shy in bar situations unless he was drunk in which case he was the loudest human to have ever lived).

“So, what do you think of him?” Eleanor asked, squinting in Louis’ direction. She was wearing a pair of blue boyfriend jeans and Converse, a far cry from her usual attire, and a suspiciously large t-shirt that read ‘Crazy Mofos’ along the front in wide, black writing. Louis had the distinct impression that he had seen it somewhere before.

“Obama?” Louis asked. “I think he’s a fine president, to be honest, if a little on the short side...”

“Listen here, sassy,” Eleanor said sternly, but there was a burgeoning smile pulling on the corners of her mouth and so Louis knew she wasn’t annoyed. “What do you think of _Harry?”_

“He probably doesn’t want to say anything in front of me,” Niall provided, popping his chewing gum bubble right in front of Louis’ face, making him grimace at the noise. If there was one thing that pissed him off, it was chewing gum.

“Good point, Ni,” Eleanor said. In one fluent movement she went into her white satchel and pulled out a pair of earphones and passed them over to Niall. “Wear these, then. And turn towards the wall, I know you can lip read.”

“When the fuck did he learn to lip read?” Louis asked, feeling the colour rising from his chest upwards. The things he’d mumbled under his breath about the particularly attractive photocopy boy on Floor 3 didn’t bear repeating.

Niall just chuckled, and after being chastised firmly by Eleanor turned towards the wall.

Louis sighed. “I suppose,” he began feebly. “I suppose he’s okay.”

“Okay?” Eleanor repeated, scandalised. “ _Okay?_ He’s fucking gorgeous, Louis! I don’t know where you’re looking.”

“Not everything is about looks, Eleanor,” Louis protested, and then, in a lower tone that he hoped she wouldn’t be able to register, “It’s just that everything else about him is perfect as well.”

“I bloody well knew it!” she exclaimed, so loudly that even Niall jumped. Louis would go as far as to have betted that Harry would’ve heard it inside the bathroom, perhaps as a faint rumble, reminiscent of an earthquake, perhaps. “Little Louis has a _crush.”_

“I do not have a... crush,” Louis spat, the word feeling uncomfortably juvenile on his tongue.

“You do too,” Eleanor smirked. “Oh, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I knew from the second I met him you were going to love him...”

“Wait a minute. When did _you_ meet him?”

“At Starbucks,” Eleanor said simply, as if Louis should’ve known this already. “He worked as a barista there for a while. He’s the one I always complained about you to.”

Louis let out a groan. “Eleanor, what did you tell him?”

“Nothing _bad,_ really,” she assured him. “Just the way your moods change like the wind, the way I’m convinced you don’t even know what I do for the company, the way you salivate over Mr. Malik in the lobby every morning...”

“I do not salivate over him! I merely bump into him...”

“Every morning without fail. Just face it, Tomlinson. You’re about as subtle as a big, gay rainbow.”

“That’s...”

He didn’t get to finish what he was about to say (and just as well, he supposed, because it wasn’t going to be very witty at all) because Harry reappeared, looking all fresh faced and grinning, as if he’d heard what had just occurred.

“What were you two talking about, then?” Harry asked as they began to walk away, briefly forgetting Niall (Eleanor was the only one who went back for him; Louis was perfectly willing to see how long he would stand facing the wall humming the Backstreet Boys under his breath).

“Nothing much,” Louis shrugged, and for once, Eleanor backed him up.

“Just coffee,” she said.

“Coffee?” Harry asked (he smiled at Louis the majority of the time in a way that made him think he was missing out on some big unprecedented prank. Either that, or Harry was just as giddy at the prospect of hanging out with him for another day as he was). 

“Eleanor’s like the Michelangelo of Starbucks,” Louis provided. Eleanor fell out of their ranks and began to walk beside Niall. Louis pretended not to notice the way that they would appear to be walking in couples to outsiders. He also chose not to realise how Niall’s fingers kept accidentally brushing against El’s, until finally she gave a short sigh and entwined their hands together.

“You know,” Harry mumbled after a while when they stopped to buy some cheap copyrighted CDs at a shady stall probably not endorsed by Marvel, because most things were illegal in New York. “We look kind of awkward walking around with them.”

“Like a kind of third and fourth wheel,” Louis agreed lowly. He denied the offer of an Iron Man porno (or at least, that’s what it looked like) and instead purchased a vintage Captain America comic book for a ridiculous price that doesn’t bear repeating. It would be a good gift for Niall for Christmas, if they stayed friends that long.

“We could pretend to be together, if you wanted,” Harry suggested, picking up a Hulk badge and turning it over and over again in his palm.

“Or we could just be together,” Louis mumbled. “Like, just for today. And we can hold hands and shit. If you wanted.”

“If I wanted,” Harry repeated, quite breathlessly. “I’d want that a lot. Or I do. I do want that a lot. Does that make sense?”

His vowels were all crashing into each other and he was stumbling over his words. It was adorable.

“Don’t worry,” Louis soothed him. “I’ve spent the past couple of weeks with Niall. If I can understand him drunk, I can understand anyone.”

“Except the Spanish,” Harry said, and Louis laughed, because of _course_ Harry would think of a loophole. It must be that whole ‘lawyer’ thing he had going on.

“And the French,” Louis provided.

“Russians.”

“Cantonese.”

“Indians.”

“Pakistanis.”

“Polish.”

“Beautiful boys with brown curls that I really want to kiss.”

“Breathtaking boys with amazing asses that I really want to make out with.”

“Quick thinking lawyers who always think of unique ways out of things.”

“Cynical losers with a penchant for drama.”

“People with dimples and green eyes who make me think things I’ll need to pray for ten days to get forgiveness for.”

“People with feathery hair and nice waists that make me think that they’d make good strippers.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Louis broke in as Niall and Eleanor bound up with their gifts hanging in bags around their wrists. “You’re saying you don’t understand a melodramatic, cynical stripper?”

“And you don’t understand a sinning, dimpled green eyed wonder?” Harry said with a grin, never faltering for a moment.

“Woah there, Styles,” Louis teased. “I never said ‘wonder’. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“I must be thinking about what you’ll say after we actually do something,” Harry said, tapping the side of his nose. “But you know what they say. A magician never reveals his secrets.”

“Until he’s naked, in which case there’s nowhere to hide.”

“Well...”

“Harry!”

Yes, life was good.

*

Comic Con lasted for a seemingly shorter time the second day round, but that might’ve been because Harry was there and making it significantly more entertaining with his bevy of irritatingly hilarious puns and perfectly executed pick up lines. It was easier than Louis thought it would be (and believe him, Louis thought it would be the simplest thing he had ever had to do) to fall into a role of boyfriend with Harry; they fit together so perfectly within a couple of hours of meeting each other that it was quite remarkable.

There were only a few people in the world in who Louis found a complete and utter confidence.

Eleanor, for one, because she was the girl who he cried to over deadlines and boys who left and boys who _stayed_ and even though she teased him with Niall, he knew that he could trust her with every damn fibre of his being because she was just the sort of person who came into your life and never left. She was always there, in the background, even when they were arguing and not talking because she was such a presence that it was quite hard not to text her when he was sitting bored or phone her when he was having a bad day, because not talking to her made it worse.

Another was his sister Lottie, who was simultaneously the biggest bitch he knew and also the best person you could ever hope to meet. Put the two Tomlinson siblings together and you were presented with the Dynamic Duo, the Dream Team, the Sarcastic Squad... Whichever your favourite term they fit into it quite perfectly, simply because their attitudes and characteristics were so famously intertwined that practically all of his home-town of Doncaster trembled in fear when they saw them together.

The point that he was trying to get to - in the brief and vaguely waffling way that most of Louis’ conclusions came about – was that his trust came with time, with energy, with love. It came with the years in which his sister backed him up when presented with rumours about his burgeoning sexuality or the tissues he had shared with Eleanor as they cried about their respective break-ups. But with _Harry ..._ It appeared so naturally, as if he was born to do nothing but fall into him completely and without hesitation. It was as if they were together at the making of the Earth, whatever he believed about that, either God fashioning them into one person and then splitting them so that they could feel the euphoria when they finally met or the simple idea that they were atoms together after the cataclysmic explosion that started everything.

Harry was so utterly _filling,_ so large and powerful that he graced everything he touched with his own inexpressible presence – so unprecedented that it was quite unbelievable to consider him a human at all. He was another being, not so common as to be a _super-hero,_ but dare Louis say it a god. His touch felt like choruses being sang up in heaven and his eyes were the endless oceans that covered half the Earth with mysteries. Harry Styles was a universe, and Louis could see but only a part of it reflected in his irises that changed colour under the differing lights of the busy warehouse, but God did he want to explore more of it with every fibre of his being.

Perhaps it was the scientist in him that made him so captivated by this boy; the pure questioning that ran through his mind at the every accidental (or, potentially, purposeful) touch, the way in which he couldn’t quite comprehend all that Harry was in his entirety, couldn’t even _begin_ to. Or maybe it was just the fact that he was Harry Styles, and that was the only way he could describe him; a person being so much of a person that they could be depicted only by their own name.

And it was beautiful, like most things about him, and Louis was so far gone and goddamnit he had never wanted to feel this way again but he couldn’t help it, not when Harry was looking at him as if he was the sun and the moon and the stars and the best thing that had happened to him that entire weekend. When Louis looked at Harry, the whole fucking world stopped for just a moment and he could see nothing but him; nothing but brown curls and dimply smiles and the pure gorgeousness that was his every crack and crevice.

To say he wanted to sleep with him was too much of an understatement. Louis was so captivated that he felt _destined_ to explore the way in which the veins in Harry’s wrist were as prominent and beautiful as the depiction of the Nile on a dated map, how the crinkles of his palm were vaguely reminiscent of a crinkled autumn leaf yet smooth like the petal of a flower, how the light purple of the bruise on his arm from where he bumped into that same Asshole Captain America reminded Louis of nothing but the expansiveness of the galaxy; the stars and the dark holes and the light and the beginning of everything and the end of anything Louis had ever known.

Louis refused to admit that his sudden blinding appreciation of this wonder of a boy may have _anything_ to do with the three beers he had downed at the local pub whilst Harry giggled incessantly in between his own pints. They clung to each other as they tottered down the streets, which probably wasn’t very smart considering this was New York and it was getting darker and Louis didn’t know about Harry but he didn’t really want to get mugged but he didn’t really want to let go either. Harry was getting heavier and heavier by the minute, pressing his hip against Louis’ own, grinning and laughing as he rested his head against the featheriness of Louis’ hair, which was now plastered down across his forehead from the sweat of walking all damn day.

They weren’t even particularly _drunk,_ or at least Louis wasn’t, and unless Harry was a complete light-weight there was no real reason for him to be leaning so extensively on Louis for support when they both knew damn well he couldn’t carry him home with the best of intentions. It was more like they were high on _each other,_ and Louis wondered when or if this would wear off, if he could keep seeing Harry and continue to live his normal life at the same time.

Days with Harry were the best days, he had decided. Harry made everything else fade away and yet come even more into focus; with such sudden vibrancy that Louis was left with a headache.

“Hey, Lou,” Harry muttered, suddenly retracting the warmth of his body from Louis, leaving only an abrupt and stark cold area on the side of Louis’ torso. Louis pouted slightly and furrowed his eyebrows, pulling Harry back into his side, but Harry remained stiff and unmovable, staring into the distance with questionable seriousness echoing his expression. “What’s that?”

Louis followed the course of his view, and his own eyes rested on what appeared to be a hammer lying discarded amongst the paper cups and chocolate wrappers in the middle of the alleyway. He squinted through the fast approaching darkness and then looked back at Harry, the sound of the buzzing Comic Con ringing through his ears telling them they weren’t far away from it.

“Looks like a hammer,” Louis provided, his fingers still drifting Harry’s hand and his attentions focused on entwining them once again.

“That’s amazing deduction there, Louis,” Harry said. A mild smirk damaged the perception of seriousness he had previously been conveying. “I can see why you became a scientist.”

Louis hit him playfully on the arm at that, and then couldn’t stop himself from rubbing the spot in which he punched mere seconds afterwards (weak, Louis, weak). “Shut up, snarky,” he said, laughing. Harry chuckled but remained entirely captivated by the thing in front of him. He started taking small steps forward, and Louis pathetically followed him, tiptoeing as he went.

“It looks like...” Harry said, hesitating slightly. Louis raised an eyebrow, and gestured for him to go on.

“I’m not getting here any younger here, Harry. Spit it out.”

“It looks like Thor’s hammer,” the younger boy said. They were standing above the object now, both staring down on it as if it was a dangerous wild animal, and as Louis hunkered down to look at it there was a sudden feeling of calm that overwhelmed him, filling every cell in his body with it, even when Harry rested his hand on his shoulder and knelt down himself.

“This thing is weird,” Louis murmured, looking over at Harry whose face seemed to be gleaming in the last remaining sunlight of the day. He appeared utterly entranced by the... hammer? “Let’s just leave it. Someone’s probably dropped it, you know the way those convention goers are.”

“Nobody would just leave this,” Harry said. “We should bring it to Lost and Found. Someone is probably searching all over for it.”

Louis scrutinised his friend (if he could call him that, or was acquaintance-who-he-kind-of-was-in-love-with a better term?) and then nodded. “Good plan, Stan.”

Harry stood up abruptly, leaving Louis, who had been resting against him, tottering unsteadily on the balls of his feet. “You grab it. I’m gonna text Niall and ask if he knows where Lost and Found is.”

Now that Harry wasn’t completely concentrated on Louis, he was left feeling significantly deflated and somewhat _weaker._ But that definitely couldn’t have been the explanation for what happened next.

Louis grabbed onto the handle of the hammer, thinking that it was at best a thick plastic replica and at worst light metal, and pushed himself up from the ground using the grimy wall of the alleyway as a support. All of a sudden, he was pulled down towards the floor once more with such un-measureable force that it shocked and stung him for a minute. Harry turned around at the sound of the bang and raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, Lou,” he said, drawing out the words. “Stop playing.”

“I’m not playing,” Louis protested, slightly irritated that Harry would think he would resort to such juvenile methods of amusement. Why would Louis William Tomlinson of all people pretend to not be able to lift a damn plastic hammer? “I can’t pick it up.”

Harry blinked a couple times. “What do you _mean_ you can’t pick it up?” he asked.

“Exactly that,” Louis stated, rolling his eyes. “I can’t pick it up, Harry. This thing weighs a ton.”

The younger boy considered him for a second, as if deciding whether he was actually messing with him or not, and then after seemingly settling on not walked over and grabbed onto the handle of the hammer. Louis scrambled to his feet and watched with mild shock and wide eyes as Harry lifted it almost effortlessly, even going as far as to swing it on the piece of fabric that hung off the end of the handle.

“How can you do that?” Louis asked, quite gobsmacked, and Harry responded with nothing but an expression that resembled vague dis-amusement.

“Louis, cut it out.”

“Cut what out?”

“That.”

“What?”

“The pretending.”

“That hammer weighs a fucking stone, Harry!”

The green eyed wonder Louis had been fawning over mere moments ago shook his head infuriatingly, making Louis feel quite irate. He could feel the redness raging up from his chest to his face the way that it always did when he was angry, and he advanced forwards, grabbing onto the handle so that his hand was barely touching Harry’s.

“I’ll prove it to you,” he demanded. “Drop the hammer, Harry.”

“How will this prove anything?” Harry asked. “How do I know you won’t just...”

“Because I swear on my sister’s life,” Louis responded, with such sincerity that he almost surprised himself. “That I won’t lie. And you know that I won’t, Harry.”

“I barely know you,” Harry argued, but his voice strained, so he sounded less confident in that fact than he probably would’ve wanted. Louis decided to skim over it. “But okay. I trust you.”

“Good,” Louis said, smiling in satisfaction. “Now, on thr...”

Before he had the chance to even finish his sentence – before he had the chance to even _declare_ the count down – Harry dropped the hammer unceremoniously, and it plunged down into the alleyway, cracking the tarmac there. Louis went down with it, landing on his side with a painful thump but thankfully no broken bones, and lay there hurting for a moment whilst Harry stared at the four cracks emanating from where the hammer sat, bewildered.

“Told you,” Louis chimed out, wincing as he did so.

“Shut up, Louis,” Harry said, still staring at the pavement.

And for once, Louis did.

*

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah,” Niall said, flapping his arms around in a way that was vaguely contradictory to the calmness he was trying to restore to the group. “Are you saying you might have – and tell me if I’ve heard this wrong because today’s been a fucked up day already and I’m kind of plastered – just might have, picked up Majulnor?”

“Mjölnir, Niall,” Eleanor corrected, although Louis had the sneaking suspicion she had pronounced it incorrectly also. “And that’s impossible. What would Thor’s hammer be doing just lying around a back alley in New York City?”

“Eleanor’s right,” Louis said, leaning back against his chair. “It’s completely impractical.”

After the discovery of the hammer, Louis and Harry had went on an immediate and scouring search for Niall and Eleanor to tell them of their discovery. They found Niall doing a beer keg with several chanting college students, some of whom were scantily clad females and who Niall was almost definitely trying to impress, and joined Eleanor in her fruitless quest to get him to leave Comic Con with them. The Irish boy’s protests of, “But Natalie was _totally_ giving me the bedroom eyes” were quickly quenched when Harry mentioned the fact that they might just have discovered an actual super-hero artefact, and Harry might just be the only one who could lift it.

The group returned to Louis’ office, which was deserted now that it was night-time but still open for Louis and his keys, and had passed around the hammer, all of them coming to the solid agreement that it was, indeed, heavy as fuck, and that Harry was either a tank or a modern representation of Thor. Both arguments seemed equally valid to Niall and equally preposterous to scientists Calder and Tomlinson.

“Iron Man and Captain America were sighted a couple days ago, though,” Harry mused. He was leaning against Louis’ seat, every point of contact burning like fire, twirling Mjölnir around and around his fingertips. “Are we really in a position to be saying what’s impractical?”

“The world is a strange and wonderful place,” Niall said. His eyes were focused on Harry, studying him with such ferocity in the deep blue irises that Louis would’ve been uncomfortable had he been the brunt of it. Harry, however, was an enigma, and he stared right back at Niall, as if they were in some kind of stand-off or mental debate that only they could hear.

“I vote we bring it into the lab for some testing,” Eleanor declared, somewhat authoritive in her tone. Niall agreed with her almost immediately, but whether that was because he was thirsty for her or because he genuinely thought it was the best plan of action was unclear.

“I vote we don’t,” Harry said. “Science and magic – or whatever this thing is – don’t seem to go together naturally. What if it blows up?”

“We can’t take that chance,” Louis piped up. Eleanor nodded, pursing her lips, obviously irritated that she hadn’t came to that conclusion herself. “What about I run some investigations on Harry? Check his blood, see if he has more iron than is normal stored that would lead to super-human strength, run tests on his muscle mass...”

“Is that really necessary, though?” Harry asked, wincing. “I mean, I can tell you right now I’m not a super-hero. I can barely lift a baby.”

“It wouldn’t hurt or anything,” Louis mumbled comfortingly into his ear, probably being closer to skin than he needed to be. Harry smelt intoxicating, like an elixir, and suddenly Louis wanted nothing more than a drink. “We can compare your body stats when you’re without the hammer to when you are. See if somehow it increases your strength or something like that.”

“Or we can just call Stan Lee,” Niall suggested. “He knows all this shit. He prophesied it before it even happened!”

“I don’t think he’s the Messiah, Ni,” Eleanor said, but she spoke with such fondness in her tone that it didn’t deter Niall in the slightest. “He probably had an agreement with Cap and Iron Man to use their stories if he kept their identity a secret. I mean, you seriously don’t think Tony Stark is a real person, do you?”

“Obviously not,” Niall said, still grinning. “Tony Stark is an emotion.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious,” Louis cut in, whilst Eleanor just stared at Niall open mouthed, “That my idea is the best. As long as Harry agrees?”

“It depends,” Harry said, smirking in such a way that made Louis feel as if he was out of the loop of some grand scheme. “Will you take good care of me, Doctor Tomlinson?”

“It won’t hurt a bit,” Louis responded, because his breath was hitching in his chest and goddamnit he couldn’t think of a word to say. “And if it does, you have full permission to make me pay for it.”

“Hmm,” Harry hummed thickly. “I like the sound of that.”

Things fall apart quite nicely, Louis thinks, and his entire life plan did just so the day and hour he met Mister Harry Styles.

*

“You said this wouldn’t hurt,” Harry muttered the next day as Louis leaned over the table, wiping up the prickle of blood that had appeared on the crease of Harry’s elbow.

“It’s just a blood test, Harry,” Louis said, smiling slightly. He was hoping with a passion than none of his colleagues would walk past at that exact moment for two reasons; A) this wasn’t _exactly_ an approved experiment and actually went against all of the theories Louis had been trying to prove for the past couple of minutes and B) he kept bumping into things and dropping test tubes, which were all going to have to come off his pay check at the end of the month, simply because Harry was so sparkly-eyed and absolutely freaking beautiful and looking at him with such intensity it made his stomach churn.

“Doesn’t matter much, anyways,” Harry said, smirking up at Louis from the table. He was dressed in a pair of blue jeans that were loose around the legs but tight in all the places that mattered and a Jack Wills hoodie that looked slightly too small, as if he had grown so suddenly that even his clothes couldn’t bear to keep up. “I love the pain.”

“I know far too much about your preferences for someone who only met you a couple days ago,” Louis muttered as he squinted his eyes and focused on dropping the blood into a test tube. He was surprised, in a way, that Harry bled red instead of gold; he was so utterly fabulous in every other way that it was shocking to discover he bled the same.

“Are you complaining?” Harry asked. The hammer was sitting beside his hand, the cold metal resting against the skin. Louis sat back down to take his blood pressure he had to ask Harry to move it to the side. It seemed to come back to him in a way that was unnatural, and when Louis turned to look at it again it had cautiously crept up the desk towards Harry and was resting lightly against his fingertips.

“Not particularly,” Louis said, furrowing his eyebrows. It was hard for him to concentrate with all of the weird happenings; hell, it was hard for him to concentrate with Harry in his presence regardless! “Can you cut that out?”

“I can’t help it,” Harry admitted, immediately knowing what he was referring to. “Whenever I think of it, it comes back.”

“Like in the movies,” Louis muttered. “Just stop thinking about it, then.”

“It’s either think about it or think about you,” Harry said, and it wasn’t mumbled as Louis thought it would’ve been – instead it was clear and unmistakeable, and his words hung in the air with a certain thickness that threatened to smother Louis. “And thinking about the hammer is less painful.”

“It’s not much fun for me either, Styles,” Louis said. His fingertips were shaking as he pushed Harry’s hoodie off his shoulders and revelled in the brief patch of skin that was revealed.

“Why’s that?” Harry asked irritatingly, because that fucker knew damn well why Louis was so shaky. Louis laughed, somewhat high pitched, and then stopped, composing himself quite suddenly.

“You’re vaguely distracting, Harry, did you know that?”

“I didn’t,” Harry said, smiling at him as if he was the whole goddamn world and God, if he wanted Louis to get to the bottom of this he really had to stop doing that. “Thanks for telling me.”

“You wouldn’t get these kind of compliments from Eleanor,” Louis joked shakily. He was feeling quite pathetic to be honest; it wasn’t as if he was a _virgin_ or anything of the sort. He had dated people before - he had dated a lot of people before – but Harry felt _different_ (that was when Louis realised that he was in a romantic comedy, and Harry was the celebrity that encouraged everybody to come to the movie because he just had that natural born charisma).

“I can imagine I wouldn’t,” Harry said, wincing slightly as the band tightened around the sensitive skin of his upper arm. “But then again, the girl isn’t in love with me either.”

“Who said I was in love with you?”

“I never said you were.”

“You implied it, Styles. You tend to do that.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. It’s quite infuriating, to be honest.”

“Do you mind me implying that you’re in love with me?”

“A tad. You’re stealing my thunder a bit, saying it yourself.”

“Oh, so you admit you were thinking it.”

“I didn’t admit anything. I was careful to remain light and passive.”

“But the fact that you were careful shows you’re hiding something.”

“I’m an open book, Harry.”

“Well,” the boy said, leaning back on his seat as Louis removed the band from his arm and copied down the results onto a slightly skewed table. “Then tell me this.”

The room became darker as the sun disappeared behind a cloud, and if Louis didn’t believe in pathetic fallacy before he definitely did now.

Harry leaned in close, his lips the most tantalising red colour, his eyes darkening due to the lack of light and fuck, Louis’ heart was racing so fast that he could’ve sworn Harry heard it.

There was only a table between them now, but he wanted there to be so much less; he wanted Harry up beside him, pressed up against him entirely, kissing every visible place on his body and then moving onto the regions normally covered by clothes.

“Would you kiss me right now if I asked?”

Slowly, silently, Louis nodded, trying to mask his eagerness, and Harry just smiled, as if he had known the answer beforehand and was just pleased that Louis had finally came to the conclusion.

“Well,” Louis managed to utter. “Are you asking?”

Harry grinned, all wide and beautiful, and Louis wanted nothing more than for this moment to last forever, to fall into this boy’s open arms and never let him go. “Indeed I am, Tomlinson.”

Louis leaned forward, and then Harry moved forward, and in the middle they both jerked towards each other and hit their noses painfully against each other. Louis burst out laughing but it only lasted a second, because then Harry’s lips pressed sternly against his own, and then they were _kissing_.

He wanted it to be harder, wanted it stronger and faster and more passionate, but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more than grace the outline of Harry’s lips with his tongue and drift their lips against each other, savouring each taste of Harry that passed into his mouth, revelling in each movement.

Harry was basically lying on the table now, and he had knocked the cotton wool off his arm so he was bleeding again in tiny pinpricks, and Louis’ chest was pressing uncomfortably against the desk, but it was perfect, it was so beautiful that he couldn’t find himself desiring more.

Finally, regretfully, they moved apart, drawn away from each other only by the cool metal of Mjölnir working its way in between him uncalled. Harry dimpled away at Louis who could feel his cheeks heating up with pure and unadulterated _glee_ and the little shit just mumbled one thing that made Louis kiss him several times again:

“You know what, Louis? You’re an alright kisser. We should do this more often.”

*

“This is quite unbelievable, really. Completely unexpected.”

“I know, Tomlinson. Who would’ve thought you’d get caught making out in the back of the lab?” Niall asked with his eyes all squinty, squished up by the wide set smirk that seemed at home upon his features. Eleanor had much the same expression, and she was standing behind Niall’s chair and resting a hand upon his shoulder, holding a Starbucks cup in her other hand. The two most important things in her life, Louis thought with a laugh.

Harry went slightly pink at his words but seemed completely – and, admittedly, adorably – chuffed that they’d been walked in on by none other than Nick Grimshaw himself, who scrunched his face together for a few minutes in confusion and then finally spent at least ten minutes congratulating on Louis getting some dick (“Finally!” he had exclaimed. “It really hasn’t been that long,” Louis mumbled to Harry afterwards, but the younger boy just smiled and squeezed his side fondly, so Louis wasn’t really sure he believed him).

Louis rolled his eyes.

“I’m talking about the research, jackass,” he said, flicking through the manila file. Eleanor coughed, taking this as her cue, and when the group’s attentions were on her she advanced across the room, setting her coffee on the desk as she went, and stood in front of a whiteboard that was apparently complicated to understand, judging by Harry and Niall’s expressions.

“Okay, so I’m going to try to put this in simple terms for Niall’s sake,” Eleanor said, ignoring Niall when he let out a mutter of dissent. “Basically, adrenalin in the body is the main conveyor of strength, some of which might even be referred to as ‘super-human’. In fact, it is this adrenalin that would be most efficient to inject into, say, a super soldier serum such as Captain America’s, if such a thing needed to be invented once more. In times of distress, such as a life or death situation, humans have the strength in their actual muscle fibres to lift a car, push a boulder or punch through a wall if the need occurs.”

“That is so fucking cool,” Niall said, his mouth dropping open. Harry, who looked more interested than shocked, scanned his eyes over the calculations on the board (this was another of the things Louis loved so ardently about him; Harry had this eagerness about everything, from school to work to love, that it was hard not to bask in the unending streams of optimism that leaked from every fibre of his being).

“The only problem with this, and the only reason that all humans don’t have this kind of strength, is because our brains arbitrarily _limit_ us. The tendons and tissues that hold mammals’ limbs together aren’t meant for that sort of abuse frequently, and often those who lash out in times of anger will find themselves physically damaged as well as their surroundings.”

“Is that why people who use steroids get hurt more?” Harry asked, questioningly, his eyebrow arched upwards endearingly. Louis nodded, placing a perhaps unnecessary but still sweet kiss against Harry’s forehead.

“Exactly, baby,” he said. “The support structures can’t keep up with their rapidly increasing muscles. The point we’re getting to here is that most people have this strength when they are faced by terrifying situations... You seem to have it when you’re holding Mjölnir.”

Harry frowned, and looked down at the hammer that was twitching lightly beside his ankle, as if it knew that somebody was talking about it. “But Thor doesn’t just have super strength, does he? He has other things too.”

“Yes, but he’s a god, Harry,” Louis said gently, not quite believing what he was about to say next. “You’re not.”

“Besides,” Eleanor said, popping the cap off her marker and scribbling down some new information. “Super-human durability, longevity, speed, strength... All of these things were indigenous to Asgardian gods of Norse mythology. The only powers Mjölnir should give you are the power of weather manipulation, dimensional transportation, electric manipulation and flight.”

“Am I the only one who can’t say Majaja?” Niall asked, pouting. Eleanor just patted him on the head, like he was nothing more than a puppy, whilst Harry stared almost transfixed at his own hands.

“So why do I have strength.”

It was more of a statement than a question, and Louis found himself suddenly understanding less than he had before.

Yes, there were facts. There was cold, un-individual truth, and there was stone hard data. These were the things that were usually important to scientists, and these were things that Louis had gone to school to learn how to appreciate and almost worship like a Messiah, because they were the answer to everything.

But then there were other things, like intuition, or the flipping in his stomach that he felt every time he met Harry’s eyes. There was the brightness of Harry’s spirit, and the odd happenings that had occurred over the course of the weekend and had nothing yet everything to do with Louis’ sweaty hands at that moment, and there was the universe that _should_ be explained by decades of research but yet _isn’t._

Louis knew how mountains were formed. He knew that rushing rivers were only there because of years of slowly transpiring erosion wearing away the landscape. He knew that the seas were nothing more than a collection of water from the rivers and sky, and he knew that the earth they stood upon was practically a hundredth of a speck in the universe.

He also knew that right now, Harry was the slow movements of the tide, and Harry was the shine of the sun, and Harry was the airplanes that he mistook for shooting stars throughout his childhood. Harry was the answers to the questions he had asked his first year science teacher, and Harry was the burning in his lungs after he ran a couple of miles in the morning under the careful glow of the sun above the city.

“There’s only one way to answer these questions,” Niall announced suddenly. Louis must’ve zoned out for a couple of minutes, because when he came back Harry was holding the hammer and Eleanor was carefully taking his pulse and Niall was looking significantly pissed at their physical contact. “Ask someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing.”

“That would be all well and good, Niall,” Eleanor snapped, in a way that sounded as if she was chastising as a child (it was nothing personal to Niall, although that was how it sounded; it was a gift she had, to make people feel inferior). “You find such a person, and I’ll be more than happy to make them a cuppa.”

Niall stood up from his seat suddenly and with authority, and bypassed Louis with a whoosh of air and a scent of Axe body spray, and placed his hand against the hammer just above where Harry’s was.

“Avengers assemble!” he yelled, so loudly that the scientists who were working five floors below would’ve definitely heard, and whilst Eleanor rolled her eyes and muttered something about pathetic juvenile behaviour, Louis was focused on the sudden stillness of the room, the stillness that would be shattered in a matter of moments.

The first thing Louis heard was a scream, but not one of panic as he had expected for some reason – rather one that reminded him of how Lottie yelled at a boy-band concert he had once been dragged to; hysterical and passionate.

Then came the footsteps pounding up the stairs and the people dropping their various experiments and cubicles, poking their heads around the walls to see what the fuss was about. Papers that had been discarded drifted carefully along the floor, as if trying to escape, and several folders dropped from the desk with the rattle of the ground.

The front door of Louis’ office rattled, shaking in its hinges, and the locked door handle wiggled with increasing ferocity as the moments ticked past, painfully slowly.

Eleanor’s protests had dwindled to a trickle, and Harry was standing in front of the group, wielding the hammer and pointing it towards the door.

It was glowing, a soft, almost translucent blue, but Louis seemed to be the only one to see it –- the door handle eventually broke off and clanged to the floor with a note of finality –- a tiny crack appeared in which all that could be seen was the blue of suit...

A dull thud echoed throughout the room, something reminiscent of a metal can clanging against the glass of a window, and when Louis turned to see the source of it, he saw him, barely, out of the corner of his eye --  his breath caught in his throat.

“Was that...” Eleanor gasped, her eyebrows almost comically in her hairline and her hair dishevelled from the wind... Niall was now looking as if he regretted his spur of the moment immensely, and his hand was barely drifting the lower of Eleanor’s back, hovering protectively. Louis moved towards Harry, grasping onto the soft skin of his upper arm.

A low, deep voice came from the other side of the door. “Fucking hell, stop trying to be dramatic,” came a man’s tone, and it sounded almost like a warning. “Just walk up the stairs like a normal human being.”

Harry lowered the hammer tentatively, a raised eyebrow displaying the confusion Louis could feel resting inside of him. “Harry,” he murmured, his lips mere inches away from his ear. “I could’ve sworn I just saw...”

“Iron Man.”

It wasn’t Harry who answered; Eleanor’s voice came out as but a whisper, and right enough, just outside the large glass window of Louis’ office building there was a man hovering, wide shouldered and tapping on the glass with seeming patience, as if this was an ordinary thing, as if it were an every-day occurrence to see someone floating outside your goddamn window.

He was wearing a red and yellow suit, fashioned almost immaculately together - an impenetrable force, like a war machine - and the paint was scraped and scoured, probably from the crash into the window. Niall and Eleanor stared at him, open mouthed and quite astonished, whilst Harry inched towards the white door and pulled it open with the tip of his foot.

If odd clothing choices were coming back into fashion Louis surely hadn’t been aware of it until that very moment. For a brief, fleeting second he felt a hint of recognition at the other man standing about a metre in front of Harry’s outstretched arm, felt as if he should’ve known the broadness of his frame, the careful, twisted smirk on his handsome features, the patriotic colour scheme of his ridiculous costume.

“Hey,” Louis said suddenly, whilst the man advanced around them, undeterred by their shocked expressions. “You’re that ass clown from Comic Con, aren’t you?”

The faint click of the window buzzed in his ears, and with surprising delicacy considering the chunkiness of the suit, the masked man made his way through, the iron soles of his suit clanging against the vinyl floor. Asshole laughed whilst letting his iron-clad mate grasp onto his arm for support.

“No,” he said, smiling in self-satisfaction, “I’m Captain America, and this is my partner, Iron Man.”

Mask disappeared from his face, revealing the perfectly – almost carved – features of none other than Zayn Malik; the (now remembered) CEO of Louis and Eleanor’s science company and the man Louis had been cursing internally in his head for the past six months (a funny little piece of irony, wasn’t it, that all of his past ‘acquaintances’ should appear at this moment in time).

A muted scream escaped Niall’s lips, and when Louis turned to him with disdain in his eyes the Irish boy was basically jumping from foot to foot in not very well hidden enthusiasm and awe.

Harry glanced over at Louis, his mouth opening and closing (his gorgeous mouth, red from the kissing they had done beforehand), as if he couldn’t quite decide what to say.

Before Louis had the opportunity to spit back some smart remark at the ‘Captain’ and make Harry smile – which was increasingly becoming his favourite pastime – Asshole crossed the room and pressed a pointer finger into Harry’s chest.

“Is that Mjölnir?” he asked.

“No,” Louis responded. “It’s a fucking toothbrush.” Malik laughed, making Louis feel a flutter of pride for some stupid reason, but Asshole just looked even more irritated with him, if that was possible.

“How come you can lift it?” he asked Harry once more. Harry shrugged his shoulders.

“Dunno,” he admitted, in a not-very-articulate way. “Just can.”

“Well you have to know _something,”_ Asshole said, somewhat forcefully. Louis felt rage well up inside of him, a feeling that he didn’t particularly like visiting.

“And what the fuck do _you_ know, bastard?” Louis asked, stepping in front of Harry so he was nose to nose, so to speak, with the Captain. “He’s telling you the truth. We don’t know anything more than he picked it up a day or two ago. That’s it. Now, if you’re here to be an asshole to my Harry, you can just get the fuck out. I don’t give a shit what kind of hero you are.”

The ferocity in Asshole’s eyes was so palpable that Louis wondered how long it would take one of them to plug each other if they remained in the same vicinity.

“What kind of hero I am?” Asshole repeated.

“Liam,” Malik whispered, resting a metal hand against his friend’s shoulder. Louis noticed how delicately painted he was upon the world; his every feature was a symphony, combined into one effortless musical. “Don’t.”

“What kind of _hero_ I am,” the boy – Liam – repeated once more, ignoring the protests of his friends. Niall let out a low whistle at the anger that was evident in his tone, and was abruptly shut up by a fast hit by Eleanor.

Louis remained, unwavering, unblinking, even when Liam moved so close to him he could taste the smoke on his breath.

“I’m just the same as your little boyfriend, over there,” he said, wiggling a finger over in Harry’s direction, as if taunting Louis.

“And what would that be?” Louis asked, pushing himself up so he was almost the same height as the man, although he soon fell back down to the flats of his feet.

Liam smiled at him, a twisted expression, one that settled uncomfortably on his features. The next words – although he didn’t know it then – would change Louis’ life permanently, in a way that he could never even imagine.

**_“I am an Avenger.”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this! :) This is going to be a trilogy of oneshots, and hopefully the next one should be up soon (definitely before Christmas, at least). I hope you enjoyed, and please remember to leave kudos and comments! - L


	2. Complications

_Yesterday was easy_   
_Yes, I got the news_   
_When you get it straight, but stand up you just can't lose_   
_Give you my confidence, all my faith in life._   
  
_Don't stand me up_   
_Don't let me down._

-          **_America_**

*******

Christmas in New York City is nothing like the movies.

It isn’t the stuff dreams are made of. It isn’t a shopper’s paradise. Times Square isn’t filled with jovial passersby who smile at you comfortingly as you walk by, just because. No, the only reason Louis Tomlinson thought he would get a New Yorker to smile would be if he offered them a million dollars. Either that, or mention that his sort-of-boyfriend-but-not-really-defined-yet was none other than the wielder of Mjölnir and Iron Man’s most treasured protégé.

Louis buried his face further into a scarf that smelt deliciously of lavender laundry detergent and Harry’s shampoo as he pushed past a group of obvious tourists. They were ooh-ing and aah-ing at the various window displays that had been hurriedly created during the previous night. Louis – having heard of the displays already in _excruciating_ detail from Eleanor that morning over a cup of coffee that definitely wasn’t strong enough to get him through that conversation – didn’t see the appeal. He preferred Christmas for another reason, most namely cuddles with a beautiful boy under the carefully dimmed lighting of his NYC apartment.

 _“Still on for Rockefeller babe? Xx”_ read the text on Louis’ phone, cold and metal in his hands. He had to admit, despite the almost freezing temperatures and the way in which he felt himself sliding every few steps, Harry made wintertime just a little bit more bearable.

They had been planning to go ice skating for a while now ever since watching Ice Princess on TV with Louis’ little sisters who came over to visit, and Louis had been both excited and terrified at the prospect of watching Harry fall over the ice. Now, at least, he didn’t have to be the only one in charge of his injuries; Eleanor and Niall were tagging along too, and he supposed Zayn might poke his head in and pretend to have not known they were going to be there.

Liam wouldn’t be there, at least. Louis comforted himself with this fact. Over the past couple of months in which Liam and Zayn had arrived at the front door of the Tomlinson residence, dressed in their complete super-hero getup and then eventually their hoodies and jeans, Louis had tried to get over his intense irritation at Payne’s every move.

“He’s just trying to help me,” Harry protested when Louis pouted for at least an hour after Liam’s departure. “I don’t see why you have to make everything so difficult.”

“He’s the asshole, remember?” Louis had said almost every time, furrowing his eyebrows together.

“You’re only saying that to make yourself feel better,” Harry said, and Louis would be annoyed, but a soft, sweet kiss usually followed, and that was enough to make him forget about everything other than Harry (not that he usually thought of much else). And perhaps Harry was right, but Louis was never going to admit that.

Louis wasn’t exactly sure _why_ the ‘training’ had taken as long as it had. How hard could it be to hold a hammer and swing it around? Many, many people did it for a living (Louis chuckled to himself at that, ignoring the look of distaste a nearby shopper shot in his obvious direction). Liam kept coming in with his boots covered in dirt and grime from the streets of the city and mucking up Louis’ entire goddamn hall, and fair enough, he wasn’t the one to clean it – Harry was – but it was the sheer _principle_ of the thing that was important.

Harry was somewhat adorable, with all his new found excitement, both at their sort of living together, their new fangled relationship and the realization that all of his childhood dreams were coming true in a matter of months; being a super-hero and falling in love.

By the time Louis reached the ice rink and began to pull his shoes off and replace them with rented skates, he was beginning to regret ever inviting the rest of the crew along. Over the past couple of months him and Harry had spent approximately 24/7 together and maybe five hours alone. When they weren’t hanging out with friends, they were shopping for the apartment they were sort of maybe planning to move into together in the foreseeable future, and when they weren’t shopping, Harry was training or they were both sleeping.

Niall got his kiss from Eleanor, purely because Louis and Harry had reached the coveted stage of the relationship where they said the ‘l’ word and that was above and beyond the agreements of their bet, and somewhere along the way they ended up kissing when they first saw each other each day, then making out when they were drunk, and now they were just friends who kissed a hell of a lot. Louis wasn’t the only one confused – Eleanor often lamented to him over her third shot of tequila that she had no fucking clue what she was doing because four months ago she hadn’t even particularly _liked_ Niall.

“He was just your annoyingly perky assistant, you know what I mean?” she complained, her words slurring into each other slightly whilst Louis wished he was anywhere else but holding her up. “He was just the guy who came onto me all the time, and I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was flattered and all and I thought he was alright but I never really thought about him other than that, you know?”

“And now,” Louis was forced to prompt every single goddamn time this occurred, to the point that her answer was indented into Louis’ brain. “Now what?”

“I think of him all the goddamn time, Lou,” she always, without fail, mumbled incoherently, and always whispered into the crease of Louis’ neck where she thought she couldn’t be heard. “That fucker’s got me falling for him.”

‘That fucker’s got me falling for him’ was but a minor light to the way in which Louis had been affected by Harry. When he saw the younger boy crossing the street, dimples popping in his cheeks and a long brown scarf hanging around his strong torso, Louis felt as if everything inside of him had woken up; suddenly the cold was more biting and the chair underneath him was more solid and everything was just a little bit more vivid, a little bit more real.

“You look amazing,” Louis said, leaning up to give Harry a kiss. His lips tasted like strawberries, and there was a faint aroma of mint hanging of the end of a whispered thank-you, and suddenly, Louis felt his irritation at the mere existence of chewing gum waning substantially.

“You know what I’m thinking, Tomlinson,” Harry said, sitting down beside Louis and pulling off his boots. “I think this is the first time we’ve been alone this month.”

“That’s not my fault,” Louis murmured, finishing tying up the ends of his ice skates. “You’re the one who decided to go all fucking super-hero on me.”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows together, looking both decidedly adorable and annoyed at the same time. “I’m sorry, Lou,” he said, but there was a hint of sarcasm lacing his syllables. “I didn’t realise that was bothering you.”

“I never said it was _bothering_ me, exactly,” Louis responded, stepping up from the seat so that the warmth Harry had been providing rapidly exited his body. “Just that you’re the reason we’re never together anymore, that’s all.”

“You could take a few days off work sometimes, you know,” Harry said. He wasn’t snapping, like Louis probably was, which made it all a bit more infuriating for a reason Louis couldn’t quite comprehend. “I know it’s hard for you to step away from all of that and spend some time with your _boyfriend.”_

“Oh, is that what we are? Because you’ve been spending so much damn time with fucking Zayn Malik that we haven’t even been able to have ‘the talk’ yet.”

“I didn’t realise we needed the talk, actually,” Harry said, standing up (this was exceptionally inconvenient, because it was much easier for Louis to glare at somebody sitting down rather than a couple inches above him). “We’re _HarryandLouis,_ for God’s sake!”

And whilst it was true that their names had become a singular entity in speech sometime in the months they had been dating, and that when Niall said ‘Louis’ in a sentence somebody else would ultimately say ‘Harry’ a few seconds later because they couldn’t bear to be apart even in thought, Louis was still slightly pissed off.

Because goddamnit he _wanted_ to look into Harry’s eyes and ask him to be his boyfriend, and he wanted to do it properly, with cards and candles and wilting roses, and he wanted to try to cook and accidentally set the house on fire and he wanted Harry to go all blushy and he wanted them to fuck afterwards because that was when the sex was the best, when they were consumed with nothing other than each other and every movement whispered _Iloveyou_ in a reverent chorus.

Passion burnt as hot as anger, and Louis found himself shifting between these emotions quite frequently when he was in Harry’s company.

“Yeah, well half of _HarryandLouis_ is getting quite pissed off at _that_ thing,” Louis said, motioning towards Harry’s satchel that was slung over his shoulder. The outline of Mjölnir was barely noticeable, able to be seen only because Louis knew it was there, knew that it was always there, that it was permanently attached to Harry now and had the goddamn privilege of being held by him every hour of every day. “Seriously, Harry. You can’t just summon fucking lightning from our balcony. That’s dangerous. Bruce is terrified.”

They had adopted a cockapoo from the local dog shelter, and, believe it or not, they settled quite nicely into the role of parents, so much so that Louis couldn’t go a day without imagining Harry brushing their daughter’s hair rather than the dog’s. It was pathetic, really, that they were so domestic.

“Well excuse the fuck out of me,” Harry said, and this time, Louis could tell he was getting annoyed. Harry rarely swore; unless of course in times of urgency, like when they ran out of cornflakes or the TV burst out during the newest episode of _Breaking Bad._

Before the argument could get particularly heated and perhaps get noticed by the throng of people pushing past them carrying large designer shopping bags, Niall and Eleanor arrived, bundled up in thick winter coats and already decked out in skates. Niall’s arm was around Eleanor’s waist, gripping so tightly that his fingers were blood red, and Eleanor was leaning against him, barely able to balance on the blades.

“Have we interrupted something?” Niall teased, obviously seeing their flushed faces and mistaking it for something more. This was understandable, as Harry and Louis’ relationship seemed to have two settings; being irritated at the other’s every move but still decidedly infatuated or two rabbits humping at every possible opportunity.

“No, just Harry being a fuck-wit,” Louis said, but the tension had passed as quickly as it came, and so his voice was a teasing lilt. Harry paused for a moment, before smiling softly and pressing a delicate kiss into Louis’ temple.

This was why everything was so beautiful, Louis thought. He was the type of person who enjoyed simplicity, and whilst Harry was anything but simple (he was the moon and the stars and the epitome of space itself for his mysteries) their dynamic was so fluid, like water, that it could flow from an argument to a passionate series of affectionate gestures within seconds.

“Couldn’t be one by myself,” Harry said softly, and Niall made a puking noise into Eleanor’s purse. Instead of screaming at him that it was Prada as she would with Louis, she just laughed and ran her fingers through his hair like he was a puppy, pushing him away playfully. He faked pulling back and then, with surprisingly accuracy and grace considering it was _Niall_ we’re talking about, captured her lips in a kiss.

Louis looked away. It might be ironic considering the amount of make-out sessions he and Harry had in the middle of Times Square, but PDA made him uncomfortable. Maybe it was the Englishman in him.

“Is Malik coming?” Niall asked once they had broken apart. Eleanor was giggling obscenely and had moved on to press her head into Louis’ shoulder. Louis threw his arm around her in a tight squeeze whilst Harry watched, smiling fondly.

“Not officially,” Louis said. “But he probably will.”

Zayn had this thing where he was an ‘extroverted introvert’. Having been raised as the sole male heir to his father’s multi-million dollar co-operation, he had spent the majority of his life attending cotillions and parties with various women who served only as arm candy, and then were waved goodbye to at night. However, as Louis got to know Iron Man over shared cigarettes in the dead of night as suspicious thunder clapped overhead, he soon came to find out that Zayn much preferred staying at home and watching movies of his various super-hero counterparts than grinding on a chick in a night club, or ice skating with his friends. Therefore, he always said he wasn’t going when Louis asked him, to keep his options open, but he usually appeared at exactly the time they planned to meet and then acted as if it was one big coincidence.

Despite this, Louis liked Zayn. He liked Zayn a lot. Apart from when Zayn was hanging out with Harry, in which case Louis didn’t like Zayn at all.

“Speak of the devil,” Eleanor, seemingly recovered, said, pointing across the ice rink. Sure enough, there was none other than Zayn himself, looking particularly dashing in a dark red jumper and tight skinny jeans. Harry burst into a wide grin and let out a yell.

“Zayn!” he called out. “Zayn, buddy, you came!”

“Of course I came,” Zayn said. It was getting dark now, and much colder, and the dark haired boy’s breath came out in little puffs. “I have to talk to you all about something, and it’s kind of important. I hope you don’t mind that I invited Liam.”

Niall and Harry immediately responded with, “Of course it’s not a problem” whilst Louis let out a loud groan, quickly silenced by a dig in the stomach from that asshole Eleanor.  Zayn smiled slightly and then thumped Harry on the back, nearly knocking him over (the wimp).

“Let’s get started now, though,” Louis suggested, taking control of the group as he usually did when they were all together. Perhaps it was the fact that he came from a family of seven that made him the obvious choice of leader. Or maybe it was because all the rest of them were whipped. Either way, the other four immediately followed him onto the rink with only milliseconds of hesitation on Eleanor’s part.

Niall was still clasping to Eleanor when Louis and Harry zoomed past them, already on their third lap of the rink whilst the other couple were on their first. Nobody had been counting how many times Zayn scooted past; he was very good at disappearing into crowds and weaving his way through tight situations. He was nimble, and Louis could tell that he had done this many times before probably on his own private rink, whereas Louis and Harry, whilst fast, were quite clumsy in their movements.

“I love you, you know,” Harry muttered into Louis’ ear as Niall and Eleanor stepped out of the rink to greet a red faced Liam.

“I love you too,” Louis said, fighting back the blush that threatened to appear as Harry’s cold lips ghosted his earlobe. It was frighteningly pathetic, really, because he could do so many things to Harry in the comfort of his own bed and not feel a prickle of embarrassment or teenager-ish glee, but when they were out in public, all it took was one touch from his boyfriend to make him melt into the ice. “Boyfriend.”

Harry grinned, the dimple popping in his cheeks. “Boyfriend,” he repeated. “I like that.”

“I prefer another term, though,” Louis said, smirking. Liam, Zayn, Eleanor and Niall were catching up to them now, and he was desperate for this moment of solitude to stretch on forever.

“Let me guess,” Harry said, pretending to think with a finger placed comically against his lip. Louis let out a laugh that danced along in the winter air. “Spouse?”

“But of course,” Louis answered. “It’s like a mixture of spider and mouse.”

“Do you want to get married this weekend, then?”

“To be honest, I’d definitely prefer a bowl of cornflakes or an episode of Breaking Bad. You’re a bit of a nerd, you see.”

Harry pulled a fake affronted face. “Well I’ll be damned,” he declared, throwing his arm around Niall’s shoulder, and then, after realising he nearly punched Eleanor in the face, retracted the gesture. “Louis here says he doesn’t want to marry me. Would you believe that?”

“You’ve been dating four months, Harry,” Zayn pointed out. Niall nodded.

“Obviously he would say no,” the Irish boy chimed. “Louis only marries boys he’s been dating for _six_ months, on average.”

Eleanor then decided this was the perfect time to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak. “Louis only marries boys who have written a five page essay on the beauty of his ass.”

Liam grinned, the fucker. “Louis only marries boys who have sacrificed a virgin to Satan.”

“Louis only marries boys with curly hair and gorgeous eyes,” Louis said finally, looking at nobody but Harry as he did so, who was smiling with such fondness burning in his eyes that it was quite unbelievable. Louis could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; he would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet stumbled along the earth. He would know this boy in death, at the beginning of everything, at the end of the world.

Perhaps it wasn’t normal for them to fall quite so suddenly into each other.  And perhaps “I love you, Louis” was nothing more than a simple four word sentence, but Louis had the sneaking suspicion that never before had such wonderful words been spoken; not by Shakespeare, or Fredreich Nietzsche, or any of the great philosophers of our time. It was spectacular in the way that only a person in love could find the subject of their affections - it was spectacular simply because it was Harry who had said it.

And God, he was beautiful, like walking straight into the sun. He was a catalyst of unending stars and stormy seas, a lifetime of explosions. And with that four word sentence, he had given a part of himself to Louis, over and over again; a secret part that people didn’t like to explore, didn’t dare to for fear of finding something meaningful.

Louis wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life after the ending of his last scientific theory and the experiments that he had spent years researching had been rendered meaningless. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to live when he got older and New York was no longer a viable option; he didn’t know whether he was going to stay close to all of his sisters and his brother when they were all grown up and sprawled out across the globe, making their own way in the world without each other to lean on. The only thing he was sure of was that he wanted to marry Harry – maybe not right that day, but someday, and someday soon.

Harry was forever, and it was pointless of him to protest otherwise.

“Please stop,” Liam’s voice broke through the spell, causing Louis to look away from Harry in favour of scowling at Liam, “You’re going to make me sick.”

“Bit late for that,” Eleanor said, smirking at Niall. “Ni’s already faked puking into my designer purse.”

“Why the fuck do you need a designer _purse?”_ Niall declared, with seeming indignity. “All purses are the goddamn same!”

“Exactly my opinion on football teams, but you don’t see me complaining,” she responded, without a second of hesitation, as if she had been waiting for an opportunity to use the sport against him.

Liam cleared his throat pointedly, causing the group’s attentions to turn slowly towards him. They were all standing in the middle of the rink now, out of the traffic of various skaters, forming a sort of skewed circle. “Whilst it’s lovely to see all these loved up couples...”

“We’re not a couple,” Niall and Eleanor immediately corrected. Liam ignored them.

“This really isn’t what I like spending my Saturday night doing.”

“Why are you here, then?” Louis asked, putting a hand on his hip. Harry smirked beside him. He seemed unendingly amused by Liam and Louis’ ‘rivalry’.

Good for him, Louis thought. He doesn’t have to deal with the fucker.

“Because something big has happened, and apparently we’re incapable of meeting up at Malik’s office like normal human beings,” Liam snapped back.

“I wasn’t aware that was an option, actually,” Louis said. Harry placed a hand on his back – an obvious subliminal message to calm down, Harry was rather good at those – but he was too focused glaring at Liam to notice much. “You know, just because you’re some big-shot Captain America doesn’t mean you can treat the rest of us like shit. Steve Rogers is so much nicer than you.”

“That’s because he’s fictional, Lou.”

“Did I ask for your opinion, Eleanor?”

“Alright, touchy...”

“Enough!”

Zayn burst into the group, surprising everyone. Louis had in his right mind to say, ‘You can yell?!’ but managed to hold it back, because he didn’t think it would be taken very well, and Zayn was technically his boss as well as his smoking buddy so... (Wow. That was weird. He only noticed when it was laid out like that. Weird but cool.)

“I thought it would be a better idea to meet here because we’re all meant to be friends! We’re all meant to be getting along here, because after all, we’re a team. We have the super-heroes – Harry, Li, me – and the scientists – Eleanor and Louis – and the...”

Zayn faltered for a moment.

“The Niall, I suppose, and all of us are equally important! I’m so _sick_ of you” - he poked Liam in the chest - “and you” – now Louis faced the wrath of Malik – “being such dickwads! Can you do me a favour and get along for two fucking _seconds?_ **Please.** ”

Then he ended, rather lamely, by shrugging his shoulders and letting his arms return to inside his pockets whilst the rest of the group stared at him in shock.

“Where the bloody hell did that come from,” Louis said, stupefied. Liam was looking quite sheepish, Harry was grinning, Niall was laughing and saying “best mate in the world” and Eleanor appeared slightly... proud?

“Well,” Zayn said, back to whispered words and careful gestures. “Someone had to say it.”

“Fair enough,” Harry said, ever the peacemaker, after a few moments of silence from the astounded group. “Now that that’s over – Liam, you mentioned something important?”

“Yeah,” the brown eyed boy said, shaking his head. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Okay. Um...”

“No offence, Li,” Louis said cautiously, lest there be another outburst from Zayn, “But shouldn’t we do this somewhere else? Somewhere we’re not blocking a bunch of angry skating couples...”

It took a few moments for the rest of his companions to glance around and notice the shocking number of glares and devil eyes they were getting from the majority of the New York holidaymakers. Finally, Liam – almost begrudgingly – accepted Louis’ idea.

“Okay,” he said finally. “We’ll go somewhere.”

“My office?” Zayn suggested.

Eleanor, quite abruptly, let out a squeal. Harry jumped beside Louis, whilst Louis, having spent the past few years with this girl and thus knowing her more than perhaps he would like to, merely rolled his eyes.

“I know the _perfect_ place!”

First mistake of Christmas: Trusting Eleanor Calder with the meeting place.

*

She chose Starbucks.

Of all the places in the goddamn city that she could’ve chosen – and which would ultimately have been more secluded and better to discuss a matter of grave importance such as this one – she chose Starbucks, the single most publicised coffee place in the world.

Louis couldn’t say he was even slightly surprised.

It was around eight o’clock at night by the time they reached the shop, and then they only got to talking at around half eight because of _course_ Eleanor had to stop and get a pumpkin spice latte and encourage the rest of her mates to get one as well. Now, there was one empty cup sitting amongst five half full ones (Louis was pretty sure the only ones particularly enjoying the beverage were Harry – because he was Harry and he was hipster but Louis still loved him – and Niall, but that was probably because the Irish boy was so far up Eleanor’s ass he could taste her cherry lip balm).

“Now that we’re all comfortable,” Harry declared, sitting forward in his seat. Him and Louis were squished up in one large armchair that probably wasn’t designed for two people, despite there being six seats around the table. “Can you please explain, dear Liam, what the hell the big deal is?”

Liam leaned forwards, pushing his latte away from him and towards Eleanor and Harry, who began arguing lightly amongst themselves before agreeing to take alternating sips of the drink.

“Something’s been changing in New York lately,” he announced, so dramatically that Louis almost laughed. Almost. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed.”

This was Eleanor’s cue to burst in, tapping her long, manicured nails against the screen of her iPhone. “There has been a substantial increase in odd seismic activity,” she explained, setting down the device in the middle of the table. Louis and Harry leaned forward simultaneously, soon followed by the rest. “They are only small events – nothing to get het up about – and therefore they’re probably going unnoticed by the majority of the public.”

“That’s what’s so worrying, then,” Louis said, turning the screen around so he could get a closer look at the readings. “Earthquakes should be spontaneous. They shouldn’t follow an exact pattern such as this one... All of these Richter Scale readings over the past month are the same, or close enough.”

“Either it’s something desperately wrong with the structure of the Earth itself,” Liam said, pursing his lips together. Louis had to admit, he was very good at this ‘delivering bad news’ business. Maybe he should’ve been a lawyer or a doctor, rather than his day job of fire-fighter. “Or we have another problem.”

This time, he pulled out his phone. A few clicks later and there was a mug-shot up on the screen. Niall perked up considerably.

In the picture, there was a woman. She looked about twenty years old – she definitely couldn’t have been more than thirty – and had strong Asian features, except for her eyes; they were quite possibly the brightest green Louis had ever seen. There were darker patches of skin along her skull, half of which was shaved so they were more visible, and on the other half long, tangled black hair hung against her shoulders. She was beautiful, and there was no denying, but with the scar across her mouth and the way she was looking at the camera as if goading it, Louis felt as if there was something sinister in her.

“Adamina Kun,” Liam explained. Eleanor was looking slightly irritated now with Niall’s salivating, but Louis was too busy looking at the picture to comfort her, or call Niall a dick. Her eyes... they were something else. You looked into them, and - even though it was a picture and this was impossible – they seemed to change _colour._ She went from reminding him of a lush, impossible to navigate forest to the deep mysteries of the Atlantic Ocean...

Maybe he was just as captivated with her as he was with Harry, or at least until his boy’s fingers drifted against his side, and he was pulled back down to Earth, shaking his head and tasting blood in his mouth from where he had bitten into his cheek.

“Who is she?” Harry asked, which was probably a good question, because Zayn was suddenly looking pale at the mention of her name.

“She’s twenty seven years old. Five-foot-eight. Attended Cambridge, graduated with a degree in geosciences.”

Niall turned to Louis for an explanation, so he provided one. “It’s the study of all things pertaining to the Earth. Right, Eleanor?”

She gave only a grunt as an answer.

“What does she have to do with us?” Louis asked, scrunching his eyebrows together. After that first initial captivating glance, she didn’t manage to trap him again, making him think even more than ever that he was losing his fucking mind. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, Liam. I’m just not sure you have a point.”

“Of course he has a point,” Zayn said, quite sharply, but that was to be expected – he had a tendency to defend Liam against the smallest of things, namely Louis’ sarcasm. “And he’s going to get to it before I have to go to my next meeting, right, Li?”

“Of course,” he said hurriedly. “My point is that we’re pretty sure she’s of...”

“Chinese descent? Seriously, Liam, get a move on. I have a new episode of _Orange is the New Black_ to watch tonight.”

“Superhuman deposition,” he breathed finally, leaving the group dumbstruck. Even Eleanor couldn’t keep drinking her latte after hearing his words. They left a deep sense of dread within Louis.

“You mean,” he said, gripping onto Harry’s upper arm for comfort. “That you guys aren’t the only super-heroes around this place?”

“I wouldn’t call her a hero,” Liam said, scrunching his nose together in a way that vaguely reminded Louis of a puppy (he was definitely going insane). “More of a villain.”

“I remember her now,” Zayn said, breaking the tension that followed those four words. “My company was looking into her. Wasn’t she put away for...”

“Engaging in blackmail of scientific leaders to achieve her goals,” Louis finished. “I heard about her at the water cooler. Isn’t she on drugs or something too?”

“Not drugs,” Zayn explained. “It’s a special medication developed by Malik Industries, specifically to help those with unnatural capabilities to exist. Liam wouldn’t be able to live without it – messing with human anatomy doesn’t usually work well in the long term.”

“The thing that worries us as Avengers,” Liam said. “Is that whenever she didn’t get what she wanted, a natural disaster usually occurred elsewhere in the globe.”

“Most of the recent major earthquakes coincided with these events,” Zayn said, with a solemn attitude that Louis had rarely seen him display sober. “And we thought they were over when we gave her what she claimed she wanted.”

“Which was?” Harry asked.

Zayn started biting on his lip. “The Tesseract.”

“I knew that was real! Fuck all you guys,” Niall exclaimed. Everyone ignored him, especially Eleanor, who was now regarding him with haughty irritation.

“She claimed to want it for experiments,” Liam explained. “So when Malik Industries agreed to provide her with it on that basis, she thought she had gotten whatever she desired.”

“But you didn’t actually give her it, right?” Harry asked, scrunching his eyebrows together in mild confusion. “Because that would just be stupid. No offence.”

“No, we didn’t,” Zayn admitted. “I crafted my own version of the stone, similar to the chest repulse transmitter used to power my suit. And it worked for a while, until she decided to try it out in this ancient artefact she found whilst on a field trip to Pompeii.”

“It was a staff, and it magnifies what we think was her already dominant earth powers,” Liam explained. “She can cause earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, create creatures from the very dirt that are very hard to destroy... I tried myself to defeat her once before, and managed to keep her back, but she’s relentless. I know that much.”

“We aren’t exactly sure why the staff was there, or how she managed to find it,” Zayn said slowly. “We’re working on piecing her history together. But the basics are that only the Tesseract will work in her staff, and if she manages to get a hold of it, we’re all screwed. Who knows what she wants to use it for, especially considering the strength of her powers already.”

“So she’s a super-villain, is that what you’re saying?” Louis repeated, slightly disbelieving, although he supposed this was the wrong response considering all the weird shit that had happened in the past six months alone. He just found it hard to believe that this girl – whilst evil looking – would be willing to kill thousands in a tsunami for no other reason than hunger for power.

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” Zayn said, taking over from Liam. “And we need all of you to help us figure out when she’s going to strike, and how we’re going to stop her.”

“I’m not a geographer, Zayn,” Louis said. “And neither is Eleanor. I’m not sure how we’re qualified to help...”

“You don’t need to be qualified,” Liam burst in once more, slamming his fist down against the table with surprising force. “You just need to be willing. Whose team are you on, Tomlinson?”

The answer was simple the second he met Harry’s gaze.

“Whatever team Harry’s on.”

“Welcome to the Avengers Initiative, then, Doctor Tomlinson.”

*

The next day, Louis was sitting on top of the Malik Industries building with Harry, sharing a picnic of cheese and ham sandwiches.

“You do realise you could bring me to the park and swing on the swings with me and I’d sleep with you,” Louis said in between sips of his orange juice. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“What was that you said at Comic Con?” Harry asked, tilting his head towards his boyfriend. “ _If I had any super-power in the world, I would want to be able to fly._ Wasn’t that it, Lou? Or was I too busy admiring you to hear properly.”

“Hopefully both,” Louis teased, poking Harry in the arm. “And besides, at that time, how was I to know that you would be able to _actually_ fly? I didn’t, therefore it was hypothetical and meant nothing.”

“I’ll have you know it took me a hell of a lot of practice with Zayn to be able to fly holding Mjölnir _and_ someone else, so your attitude is really unappreciated, Lewis.”

“Don’t call me Lewis, Harold.”

“Don’t call me Harold, Lewis.”

Louis smirked in his direction, trying to ignore the way that whenever he moved his head even slightly, his hair blew into his mouth. “You seriously didn’t think this through though, babe,” he laughed. “It’s like a bloody wind tunnel up here!”

“I was trying to be spontaneous and romantic, pumpkin,” Harry muttered, dimple popping in his cheek. “I mean, you never know. This might be the last time we see each other before I become a hardened bad-ass.”

“You’re going to fight a villain with grass powers. Literally. She can grow grass.”

“And cause massive disasters, which you conveniently decide to leave out.”

Louis let out a sigh and leaned back against the roof, throwing his sandwich to the ground. Luckily, it didn’t fall over the side, otherwise he would be paying a very expensive lawsuit. And he didn’t really have the time for a really expensive lawsuit.

“Do you really believe in the whole villain thing?” he asked Harry, who had joined him in lying down. Harry reached his hand out to Louis, and their fingers intertwined, making butterflies erupt in the base of Louis’ tummy.

With Harry, he was more aware of the beating in his heart against his rib cage than he was anywhere else. He could say that he was getting used to it, but that would be a lie.

“I don’t think anybody could be _completely_ bad,” Harry said eventually, after several moments of careful consideration (although this was to be expected – Harry never spoke without thinking things through). “There are good points and bad points to everyone. But do I think that sitting down with Adamina and talking through her mental issues will stop her from killing me and taking my hammer? I don’t think so.”

“Hey,” Louis exclaimed, turning his head so he was looking Harry in the eye. “I’m the only one allowed to touch your hammer.”

Harry laughed at that, all squinty eyed and beautiful against the backdrop of a misty, lightly snow covered New York. Suddenly, Louis was hit with the almost battering conclusion that this was why he had moved to the city after all; to see the gorgeousness of it framed alongside the people he cared most about.

Louis was getting all sentimental and optimistic. Harry was really changing things.

“Yes you are,” Harry said, smiling, and then their lips were touching, and fireworks were dancing as if it was their first time all over again. His mouth tasted warm and vaguely like the tanginess of the Fanta he had been drinking, and there was no drug better for Louis than this boy’s love.

“Just promise me something,” Louis said, pulling away only slightly, so that when he spoke his lips brushed against Harry’s. Harry nodded, placing a peck against the corner of his mouth. “Stay safe when you’re battling big bad grass growers.”

Harry considered his boyfriend for a moment, and then pulled him into a sweet, comforting embrace, his large hand spread out against Louis’ back, unwavering in its affection.

“I’m never going to let you go, I don’t think,” he said lightly against Louis’ neck, and Louis slightly hoped his last two words would be lost in the winter breeze.

“Please don’t.”

*

Eight days before Christmas, and Louis was spending his time in his apartment with Harry _alone,_ for the first time in weeks.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the time for them to participate in rated R activities – instead, they were lying up against the couch, their legs entwined in each other, sewing together a costume that Louis was pretty sure would hold up against the majority of weather conditions. Bruce was running around, a long, red velvet cape draped over his head, his claws scuttling along the wooden floors.

In the background, the movie _Thor_ was playing, partly so that they could examine the way in which his suit was constructed and almost entirely because of Chris Hemsworth.

“Cape or no cape?” Harry hummed, frowning at a pinprick of blood on his finger from where he had poked it with the needle. Louis leaned over the sofa and pressed a kiss to the cut, then followed up with a peck on Harry’s lips, because they were there and they were all red and gorgeous and they were his.

“I would usually say no cape,” Louis said, furrowing his eyebrows. He shuffled closer to his boyfriend – who was only half clothed but still radiating heat like a fucking furnace – and buried his head into the crook of Harry’s neck. “But Thor wears a cape. And I mean... you’re Thor, I suppose.”

“Does that make you Jane, then?” Harry asked. Louis could feel him smiling against his hair, and he snuggled even closer. “My little sexy scientist.”

“I suppose,” Louis responded. His cheeks were going slightly red, which was embarrassing, so he decided to change the subject as hurriedly as possibly. “Knowing you, though, you’ll probably trip over the damn thing and break your neck.”

“I am a graceful swan,” Harry said. “I have no idea where you would get that from.”

Louis sighed, finishing up the last stitch and then holding it up in front of him, admiring their handiwork. Their arms were lined up beside each other, one tattooed and one not, and Louis thought about whether he was actually right in the head – before he had met Harry, he was of the firm opinion that tattoos were for thugs or punks only. Now, he had his entire fucking arm covered.

This boy was driving him insane, and the sad thing was that he didn’t even care.

“Hopefully this’ll help,” Louis muttered softly, trying desperately to ignore the flipping in his stomach that appeared any time he even referenced the upcoming ‘battle’. He didn’t want to seem like the worried, nagging boyfriend, even if that was what he was becoming, and therefore he just decided to do something previously foreign to him – shut up.

“I’ll be okay, won’t I, Lou?” Harry said, and his voice was lower than usual, catching on a couple of the vowels and especially on Louis’ name.

“You’ll be fine,” Louis responded, more harshly than he would’ve liked. He was briefly thankful that he was lying against the other boy’s chest, because he couldn’t possibly meet Harry’s eyes. “You’ll be with Zayn, and Liam, and I’ll probably be there too...”

“No you won’t,” came the sharp reply. Louis frowned.

“Yes I will, Harry,” he said. “I’m the one who knows how to work the technology. Zayn needs me on the ground in case his suit fails.”

“It’s too dangerous for you to be there.”

“Well you can’t fucking stop me. I want to be there, and that’s that.”

“Why do you always have to be so stubborn about things?”

“Why do you always have to make everything bigger into what it is? This isn’t about me, or my stubbornness. This is about the fact that you’re deciding to go risk your life and actually have the _audacity_ to try and forbid me from doing the same!”

Harry pushed back away from Louis, so that he had no chance other than for green to meet blue.

“I just love you,” Harry basically groaned, as if it was a difficult thing to say. “I love you so damn much, Lou, and it kind of terrifies me.”

“Same here,” Louis said. “But I think for different reasons.”

Silence overcame the apartment. It was dark now, and the only light came from the TV or the flashing billboards outside his window, that cast shadows upon Harry’s face and highlighted his every perfect feature. Louis kind of wanted to kiss him all over, and he thought briefly about how he didn’t believe there was a spot on Harry’s body he _hadn’t_ kissed yet apart from that little spot where his jaw met his ear...

“Well,” Harry broke through his thoughts, like he always seemed to. “What are your reasons?”

“Do you really want me to answer that? Because you don’t sound like you do.”

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I love you! I bought a fucking dog with you!”

“Oh wow, who can argue with that logic?”

“I love you, Harry. And that’s what makes this so goddamn difficult.”

Harry let out a deep breath that shuddered through his body, and, quite suddenly, Louis felt the chill in the room all the more evidently.

 Slowly, and with the heart-wrenching cautiousness that laced Harry’s every minor movement, Harry leaned forwards and pursed his lips together so that they were shining in the dimmed lighting.

Louis felt something inside of him stir as he looked into Harry’s eyes – something that seemed to have been dormant for centuries and had only just awoken, something that made it hard for him to breathe and made the heart beating against his rib cage all the more evident – and mirrored his movements almost instantly, but more jerkily.

Harry’s fingers outstretched, Louis’ hand snaking around to grab onto Harry’s ass in his boxer shorts, they moved closer, so that they were pressed up against each other and Harry’s hands were cupping Louis’ jaw, their noses touching and their breaths mingling.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Harry murmured lowly, sexily, so that Louis could do nothing but nod. “I’ll take care of you baby, don’t you worry.”

Their lips touched, softly at first and then with increasing friction, and Harry tasted like the end of the world.

*

The next morning, as Louis sipped on his black coffee and watched Eleanor continue to argue with Niall at the water cooler, the alarms went off at Malik Industries, meaning that they would have to stay at work until the entirety of the premises was searched for weapons or explosives instead of heading home at lunch, as most of the scientists were planning that Saturday.

It was considered a drill by many of Louis’ colleagues, but the three friends knew better. Immediately, as the red lights turned and screamed out their deafening chorus, they turned around to each other, Niall’s eyes wide and Eleanor’s furrowed in determination.

“We better head up to his office as soon as possible,” Eleanor said, already shrugging off her grubby white lab coat and dropping it onto Louis’ mist-matched desk, almost knocking down a photo frame (it was filled with one of Louis’ favourite pictures; Harry was winking and laughing and Louis was just looking at him, marvelling in his magnitude).

“I’m not sure I want to do this, now,” Niall muttered uncertainly, and he was definitely looking a rather peculiar shade of green. “I mean, I don’t know Jack shit, to be honest. You and El are all educated, and Harry has that big fucking hammer...”

Louis coughed.

“And Liam has a shield and Zayn has a suit and what do I have? Forty dollars worth of bleach on my head?”

“Oh for God’s sake, Ni,” Eleanor said, but Louis could tell from her demeanour – slumped shoulders and mild irritated expression – that she was thawing out from her previous icy disposition towards the Irish boy. When Louis had asked her late the previous night on the phone what exactly was her goddamn problem and could she please fix it because he was sick of hearing Niall complain about it, she had glossed over the problem and acted as if she had been talking normally to the other boy the entire time. Therefore, Louis came to the rather obvious conclusion that she was bitterly jealous of his salivating over Adamina. “Man up.”

The elevator that they travelled in up to Zayn’s office was glass and almost impossibly fast; Louis had difficulty keeping down the elaborately thanks-for-the-sex pancake breakfast Harry had made that morning. In front of him, everything he had ever known since moving to New York was sprawled out in plain view – the glass wall of the front of the building providing a frame to the gorgeousness of the early morning glow of the city, the sun’s rays bouncing off the buildings and almost blinding him. Everything was so eerily calm at that moment that he couldn’t envisage that anything had gone horribly wrong – he definitely hadn’t noticed any major seismic activity on his Richter scale equipment, but maybe that was because he was a bit preoccupied with ring shopping.

“What do you think has happened?” Niall asked nervously, picking at a rag nail on the side of his thumb and biting on his lip. He was leaning against the wall of the elevator, something that Louis couldn’t bring himself to do, and was the utter personification of nerves.

“Nothing bad, I hope,” Louis answered, trying to keep the worry out of his voice – an emotion that was increasingly becoming his most frequent. “Otherwise Harry would’ve phoned me, I’m sure of it.”

“We won’t have to wait long to find out,” Eleanor said, peering at the digital display. “We’re only ten floors away.”

Silence ensued her statement, broken only by Niall’s off key nervous whistling and the tapping of Louis’ foot against the vinyl floors.

“They should really get some music in these things,” Louis said, rather awkwardly, because Eleanor and Niall looked as if they were either going to push each other out of the lift or begin making out in the tight confines. “You know the way in the movies there’s little jaunty tunes? They should get them here. You’d think Malik, with all his money, would get some...”

The doors clicked open, and Eleanor and Niall immediately exited the elevator in the midst of Louis’ sentence, not even bothering to look back. Slightly miffed, he followed on their heels.

He had never been to Zayn’s office before. It had a black opaque door, labelled ‘Mr. Z. J. Malik’ in very official looking font, and there was a complicated alarm system beside it. Louis pulled his ID out of his pocket and scanned it over the front of the device, and a small hologram appeared in the form of none other than Malik himself.

“Louis, is that you?” he asked, squinting his eyes. Louis nodded, and then, realising that if he couldn’t identify him he probably couldn’t see the answer, said, “Yes, it’s me. Let us in, we’re dying with anticipation.”

Niall was mumbling behind him, “I can’t tell whether that’s sarcasm or not”, but all that Louis could focus on was the door that slid open to reveal an office of luxury that could rival the White House itself, probably, and was definitely worth more than all of Louis’ material possessions put together.

“Wow,” Eleanor breathed, almost at the same time as Niall, who high fived her. Louis was quite awestruck as he took in the almost panoramic views of the city that were in front of him, and the pure quantity of various machines.

It seemed as if Malik’s office doubled as some sort of a garage, because there were wrenches and tool boxes lying haphazardly across the floor. Zayn himself, when he came into view with a wide grin and arms opened up in greeting, had oil smeared against his porcelain skin and was wearing large gloves and an apron over his expensive suit.

“El, Ni, Lou, thanks for coming so fast,” he said, ushering them in further into the room. As Louis stepped forwards, he saw that there was even more of the office/workspace than he could’ve imagined, including a living area with a large plasma screen television that none other than Harry and Liam were reclining watching.

Louis’ face burst into a wide grin at the sight of Harry, and his brief dumbstruck ended abruptly as he raced almost childishly towards him and crashed into his arms painfully. Harry was laughing, and then so was he, and before they knew it they had rolled off the sofa and onto the floor.

Instead of getting down to business immediately, Liam had to spend five minutes trying to calm Harry down. He wasn’t very successful, but after a few hundred, “Louis, stop tickling him” and “Harry, seriously, you’re like a teenager” the boys were finally settled on the massive, plush purple corner sofa, watching a screen that held yet more calculations (Louis was getting quite sick of them, which was ironic considering he was a fucking scientist).

“Who the hell are you?” Niall said whilst Liam tried to pull the two lovers apart. Zayn just smiled, sipping on a glass of bubbly alcohol.

“A genius,” he said simply, and then, after a few moments of consideration, “Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist.”

“You stole that from the movie!”

“No, the movie stole that from me.”

“Adamina has been found,” Liam stated sharply, interrupting all conversations in the room, one of his most annoying tendencies. He was the only one still standing apart from Eleanor, who was looking very professional in a pair of trousers and a dress shirt that looked distinctly Niall’s. “We tracked the seismic activity and found she is either here” – he pointed on the map towards a city in France Louis had no chance pronouncing – “or here” – a small settlement in Spain, bordering Portugal.

Louis let out a brief laugh.

“That’s a bit of a large range, isn’t it,” he said, and believe him, he was trying not to be condescending. It was just so damn _hard_ when Zayn had shut down the entire fucking building to tell them that yes, Adamina was somewhere on another continent, either here or here, and here being five hundred or more miles apart.

“If she’s still in Europe,” Niall muttered, his mouth half full with the complimentary chocolates Zayn’s assistant had left on the desk before exiting the office. “Then why do we need to bother?”

“We need to bother because she’s coming here soon,” Liam answered, as if it should’ve been public knowledge. Louis immediately felt as if he should say something to defend Niall, but before he had the chance, Zayn’s assistant – a wild haired, be-speckled twenty year old – burst into the room.

“I’m sorry sir,” she panted breathlessly, her face bright red. “But there’s something you need to see.”

Zayn moved towards her immediately to follow, but she shook her head and steered him instead towards the window.

Louis got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, one of those gut feelings he always wanted to trust but couldn’t find the will to. Harry got off the sofa and stood in front of him protectively. Mjölnir, which had been sitting abandoned beside the desk in the other room, smashed through a glass of champagne on the way back to its owner. The poor assistant let out another yelp, and Niall and Eleanor went to help her whilst Louis, Liam and Harry moved cautiously towards an increasingly sombre Zayn.

The scene in front of them was pure and utter devastation. No other way to describe it.

The silence that had haunted Louis when he first entered the glass room was shattered.

It was replaced by hundreds of small, circling tornadoes that were tearing apart the wide main street in front of M.I. building, ripping newspaper stalls from the ground and scattering rubbish, sticking it to windows.

People were running, screaming, undoubtedly wondering if the end of the world was coming.

Harry turned to Louis – which seemed to be his automatic reaction to everything, Louis just then noticed – and said, “Did you bring the suit?”

Louis nodded, a thick lump forming in his throat. “I brought the suit.”

*

“Let me get this straight,” Niall panted several minutes later as the now suited up Captain America, Iron Man and Thor (or Tharry? Who fucking knows) and their companions Eleanor and Louis pounded their way down hundreds of stairs towards the main street, when the elevator probably would’ve been faster. “We’re going to go down – where the entire fucking street is being ruined, mind you – and stand in front of... who exactly? ... and battle them? Without a clue of what we’re doing or any good plan?”

“We have a plan,” Zayn said, calm even when he probably shouldn’t be. “We’re going to make it up as we go along.”

“Oh,” Niall said sarcastically. “That’s a perfect plan. Earth’s mightiest heroes don’t have a fucking notion.”

His protests continued down the stairs, and got increasingly morbid as they went:

“Bet you we’re not even going to be able to see her, and whilst we’re chasing her all around the bloody place she’ll be up stealing the Tesseract.”

“Bet you one of those tornadoes is going to go for us and wipe us all the fuck out before we get outta the door.”

“Bet you I die today. Yes, today is the day I will die.”

Eventually, Liam grabbed him and pressed a hand against the Irish boy’s mouth, making his angry protests nothing more than light murmurs.

“You better shut up now,” he warned with a slight, teasing smirk that Niall probably didn’t notice because really, nobody noticed anything when Liam Payne’s hand was pressed against their lips, no matter what their sexuality. Eleanor was shaking with suppressed laughter, and Harry was smiling as his fingers entwined with Louis’ subconsciously, sending little butterflies to his stomach.

“Liam’s right,” Zayn stated, pressing a button to open up the mask, revealing his handsome features. “If Miss Kun is outside waiting for us, she’s probably heard you whining on for about five minutes now.”

“So that’s our plan?” Louis asked, as a now berated Niall was released by Liam and trailed his feet sheepishly behind the others. “The element of surprise?”

“Element,” Harry chuckled lightly under his breath.

“Pun unintended,” Louis responded, but it had made Harry smile, so he couldn’t stop himself from pressing a light kiss to the other boy’s shoulder. The cool metal of the suit remained on his lips as they all crowded around the door, Eleanor behind Zayn, Liam protecting Niall and Harry with Louis.

“We open the door on three,” Liam declared. Louis was briefly pissed – after all, it was him who was the unofficial leader of the group – but he didn’t really have time to pull Liam when they were all standing there in tense anticipation, Zayn’s mask down once more and his hand pressing down on the bar.

“One,” Liam said. “Two.  Three.”

The door opened, and once more, Louis wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting.

The outside world was almost completely calm – in fact, Louis was sure that he wouldn’t have been aware of the tornadoes that had wreaked havoc over the street if there hadn’t been debris sprawled over the pavements. Perhaps Niall’s prediction had been correct, and maybe they should have taken the elevator, and maybe if this was a movie CinemaSins would have a field trip pointing out all the idiotic actions of the new age Avengers.

“A jump-scare’s coming,” Niall muttered, then let out a yelp when Eleanor dug him in the ribs to get him to shut up. “Just fucking saying.”

Harry looked around cautiously at the other superheroes, and then met Louis’ eyes. “Will I go first?” he asked, and Louis was about to protest when Liam agreed sharply.

Louis watched as the younger boy’s knuckles whitened around the hammer, his nails bright pink from the strain. “I’ll go with you, if you want,” he offered.

“It might be dangerous,” Harry said.

“I have no reason to fear that, Harry,” Louis whispered, although he felt a flutter of guilt at lying. “The only fear I have is not being with you.”

Harry pursed his lips. “Fine,” he conceded after a few moments. “Just don’t let go of my hand, whatever you do.”

“I wouldn’t if you paid me,” Louis responded, linking their hands together and enjoying the feel of Harry’s smooth skin against his rough palms. “Ready to go?”

His lover nodded, and, together, they stepped out of the building into the street. Louis had to stop himself from coughing – there was dust flying around everywhere, dancing in the breeze, taunting them. A few stray foxes had came out from the alleyways now and were scavenging from the overthrown bins, and Louis could clearly see the faces of many civilians pressed up against windows, desperate to see what was happening.

“I don’t see anything,” Louis said slowly, hoping that his conclusion wouldn’t jinx the couple. Harry nodded, whipping his head around a few times as if expecting something to appear instantaneously.

“You guys can come out now,” he called back to the other heroes (cowards, more like it, Louis thought with a frown). “The coast is clear.”

 Cautiously, Liam stepped out of the building, holding his shield against his naval protectively. Eleanor was gripping onto his bicep tightly, something that was probably the cause of Niall’s prominent pout. After them Zayn walked out confidently, the bottom of his suit making tiny clanging noises as he moved.

He seemed a different person, Louis recognised, when he was in the suit. Zayn Malik was a boss, a son, a brother – he was a source of controlled power and social standing. He was famous worldwide, known mostly for his way with words and the way that, even though he spoke lowly and slowly when he spoke at all, the entire room fell silent the moment his lips moved. When he was in the suit, though, he seemed utterly invincible – more confident and impressive than Louis could imagine someone so quiet would be. Liam, whilst not quite Steve Rogers, was much the same, but Louis refused to acknowledge his virtues on the basis of him being a prick.

“How could she just disappear again?” Eleanor asked, looking down at the phone in her hand. The seismic activity monitor was still bouncing around, highlighting earthquakes and such in different areas of the city, and the weather report was constantly changing – he could only imagine meteorologists up in Malik Industries were having a field day.

“It’s snowing in Egypt,” Louis said. “Why the fuck is it snowing in Egypt.”

“Do I look like I know, Louis,” Eleanor snapped, tapping furiously whilst Zayn just kept an eye on the sky. It had been a relatively clear day before, but now there were dark clouds tumbling over the city. This wasn’t unprecedented (the sudden and pounding rainstorms were one of the things that had convinced Louis to move to New York in the first place) so Louis turned his attentions back to his friend, and watched as Niall started using his degree to actually do something.

“If they used this,” the blond haired boy said, swiping on the phone, “and connected it to this wire and chopped this main frame off here, then they would be able to get more accurate results.”

“But the main problem is the fact that it keeps changing,” Eleanor said. A ping came from the iPhone and she let out a sigh. “Bushfire,” she declared.

“Australia?” Liam asked. Zayn was still staring at the sky.

Eleanor shook her head, scrunching her eyebrows together. “Alaska,” she said. “But that can’t be right.”

“Are you sure she doesn’t have the Tesseract?” Harry asked. “I mean, we’re all just standing here out in the open, and she’s completely disappeared, and all these things are suddenly happ-“

The city was plunged abruptly into darkness. A loud, piercing scream echoed through Louis’ ears, but he knew that it wasn’t Eleanor, because her voice followed soon after, “Stop being such a fucking wuss Niall, for God’s sake.”

“What’s happening?” Harry asked. Mjölnir had begun to glow lightly in blue, and it was reflecting off the softness of his features. Louis couldn’t help but marvel at him. It was one of those moments in which he thought that Harry couldn’t possibly be just a human.

“She’s coming,” Zayn said. “I can see her.”

“Well good for fucking you,” Liam said. “Unlike you I don’t have a mask on that tells me what’s happening.”

“Leave J.A.R.V.I.S. alone!”

“Thanks, Niall.”

“She’s coming?” Louis said, clutching onto Harry’s arm. The muscles were tense under the tanned skin, and the ink that they had chosen together was highlighted by the brief light which started to wipe across the street, like little rays of sunlight through slanted blinds. It reminded Louis somewhat of high school, when he would sit in the small maths classroom and be the brunt of constant taunts and rubber throwing, and how he would have stared at that piece of light for the entire hour if it meant he could ignore all that going on around him.

He supposed it made sense that Harry was providing the light, now.

“If we can’t see her, how can we – “

A crash echoed through the darkness, and suddenly, the clouds parted.

“Got her,” Zayn said, as if he had just popped around to the shop to get milk. It took a few moments for Louis’ eyes to readjust, and when they did, the group advanced forwards.

“Wait...” Eleanor said. She was frowning, and it was only when Louis knelt down to the ground beside her and turned the person’s head around that he realised the minor complication. “This isn’t Adamina, Zayn.”

Liam let out a loud, deep, agitated sigh. “You just knocked a fucking S.H.I.EL.D agent out, Zayn. Good job. Four for you, Iron Dork. Four for you.”

“Don’t call me Iron Dork, you fuckwit,” Zayn snapped, but he also appeared significantly worried at his miscalculation. “I’d like to see you fighting someone in the _dark.”_

“Wait wait wait wait wait,” Niall stammered, holding his hands out in front of him as if he could just push all of this away. “S.H.I.E.L.D is real?!”

“Your childhood best friend is holding a magical hammer right now and you’re seriously questioning the existence of S.H.I.E.LD.”

“Shut up, Harry, you snarky fucker.”

“Don’t tell Harry to shut up!”

“Louis! Don’t yell at Niall!”

“Eleanor! Don’t yell at Louis!”

“I’ll yell at him if I bloody well want to, Liam.”

“ENOUGH.”

Everyone turned around to look at Zayn, or, rather, at Zayn’s suit. The fact that you couldn’t see his deep brown eyes was somewhat disconcerting.

“You’re missing the point here, Liam,” he said, turning around to his best friend. “S.H.I.E.LD.’s here.”

“You’re right,” Liam said. This was perhaps the first time Louis had seen him look utterly confused. “I am missing the point. Is there a point?”

Zayn clicked his mask up. Louis noticed he looked positively _white._ Harry stepped forward to comfort him, but before he could, the other boy turned around so that the group couldn’t see him.

“She’s here.”

“Who’s here?” Liam asked, frustrated.

“ _Her.”_

“Her who?”

A crisp, clear voice answered. “Me.”

Niall let out a gasp and Harry nearly jumped five mile into the air. Louis, however, remained perfectly still as a woman dressed entirely in black jumped down in front of them and looked him straight in the eye with a steely determination he found himself admiring.

“Who the fuck are you?” Liam asked. Zayn was still turned the other way, and seemed about ready to fly away.

The girl, whose face was almost entirely covered by a balaclava, rolled her eyes. “Do I look like the kind of person who tells people who I am?”

Liam floundered for a few moments, and Louis was stuck between being afraid of this girl with the collection of guns hanging off her belt or grabbing her into a tight, thank-you-so-much hug. Harry also seemed to be conflicted, but maybe not in the same way as Louis.

“What are you doing here?” Zayn’s voice cut through the brief interlude of silence.

“I’ll tell you if you turn around,” the woman answered.

Zayn, somewhat surprisingly, obliged, but not before he put down his mask once more.

“What. Are. You. Doing. Here.”

“Helping you,” she answered simply. “Even though the Director approves of your recent recruit, he’s still not particularly pleased with your... expertise.”

“He does realise I singlehandedly took down an entire terrorist organization by myself,” Zayn said. It should’ve been impressive, but instead it sounded much like a five year old boy boasting about his recent achievements in football when really he was shite at the game. “Built the Iron Man suit. Found a way to contain the endless potential of the Tesseract. Developed a way of keeping myself alive after a plane crash by using this...”

He gestured towards the glowing circle in his chest.

“And took down his single greatest agent...”

“While her guard was down, unless you forget,” the girl said. Her bright blue eyes were softening slightly, but perhaps it was only noticeable to Louis, who was looking at her with careful curiosity. “Now though, Malik, you wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing, even inside that suit.”

“I don’t really have time for this, to be honest,” Zayn said. “I didn’t sign up to be monitored by the likes of you.”

“And what the hell do you mean by that?” she asked. Her fingers lightly ghosted the gun around her belt. Louis hadn’t even realised until Zayn held up his arm.

“Go for it, princess,” Zayn said. “I’d have no regrets doing this.”

Eleanor cut through the tension like a knife. “Sorry to interrupt, guys,” she said, in the voice that said she wasn’t really sorry at all. “But the readings have gone back to normal now. I think she’s gone.”

“Well then,” the girl said, shaking her head as if snapping herself out of something. “I guess my work is done for now. See you later, Malik.”

She disappeared as quickly as she came down an alleyway. Louis watched her as she went, nimble and fluent, like her body was as flexible as the breeze. Or perhaps a spider.

“Who was that?” Niall asked, back to being excited about the prospect of superheroes after the immediate danger had passed.

“Nobody important,” Zayn snapped. “Let’s just go home.”

The rest of the Avengers pretended not to notice the way in which, when they returned to Malik Industries, Zayn blasted his entire office apart.

*

“She was Sofie Gonzalez, last time I met her,” Zayn explained later that night, when the rest of the boys had gone home and it was just him, Louis, and his fifth glass of vodka. “Expert government operative in the battlefield. Underground recluse. Goes by the name of Black Widow. Double agent. Works for S.H.I.E.LD now, although I have no idea why they hired her, given her history and all.”

“Well that’s a lovely summary of her CV you gave me there, Zayn,” Louis said, shuffling around slightly on the sofa. It was a bit difficult to get comfortable when there was rubble from the ceiling shattered against the cushions. He had moved most of it off onto the floor (Zayn’s maids would have a field day the next afternoon) but he couldn’t be assed doing anything more. He needed to save up energy for whenever he got home and Harry was sitting there waiting for him with sparkling eyes and bare skin. “Now do you mind telling me why she pissed you off so deeply?”

Zayn was just drunk enough for him to be able to answer Louis without a moment of hesitation.

“I was on a work trip to Moscow when I met her,” Zayn explained. “It was actually just after the plane crash where I... I damaged my heart.”

“That explains the whole thing you got going on there, then,” Louis said, pointing to his chest.

“I was going to Russia to find out more about this here technology,” Zayn continued, sipping on his drink as if it was the oxygen he breathed. “I had a couple weeks to live, at most, if I didn’t work it out. I went around, talking to so many engineers and doctors and scientists about things that I only barely understood because I never had to think about the whole health side of things, you know? Malik Industries focuses on weapons and sustainable energy, not medical revolutions.”

“I know, mate,” Louis said slowly, setting down his glass before both of them became completely intoxicated. “I do work there.”

“Oh ai,” Zayn said, hitting himself in the forehead and giggling with his tongue in between his teeth. “Where was I?”

“Russia. Moscow.”

“Yes. Right, so I was talking to all of these people and learning all of these things, and then I got given an invitation by someone on the street to this science convention just a few streets away from my hotel. I thought that this was the perfect. I’d get to talk to a lot of people at once, and my time was running out and my money was getting me nowhere.

“I met a girl there, a girl named Sofie. She said she was the daughter of one of the medical engineers at the convention, and when I told her of my health problem, she became very interested. She didn’t even know my name for the first couple of weeks, or, at least I thought she didn’t. I just thought she was helping me from the goodness of her heart.

“She let me stay with her and... and she took care of me. She made me soup and tended to my wounds and helped me when I couldn’t breathe. She calmed me down, made me feel better, and, I suppose, I began to get feelings for her? If you could call them feelings. I couldn’t really think straight around her, and my heart felt the best it had for weeks, even when it was giving out on me.

“After a while, she came home from ‘work’ with a medicine that would give me another month. I took it without asking many questions. I had the strength to follow her around Moscow after that doing several pretty illegal things to get information without asking many questions too. I was _dying_ and she made me feel like I was living, like I could keep on living, and she always looked at me like I hung the goddamn stars in the sky and I loved her, I’m pretty sure I loved her, in the way that a sick man loves his nurse, or a man who had just started drawing up a fucking metal suit is in love with the girl who is far too cool for him.

“She only told me on the last day that she wasn’t that man’s daughter. She was a specially trained assassin for the Soviet government. She had a reputation in America that put her on the most wanted list. I had already developed the technology and made the first version of this heart, and so I was getting ready to go back to New York – I couldn’t spend my life in Moscow, my company was back here. And so, stupidly, I told her that I would work it all out and she could come back and be with me, and we would get married.

“I paid off the president pretty quickly, and without giving away too much about ‘Sofie’ I got him to agree on temporary citizenship for her. She came back and lived with me in the tower, and I bought her a ring and I kept it in my pocket for her and then everything went wrong, everything went so horribly wrong and I hated myself for it, I absolutely hated it.

“I knew I’d made enemies. I knew that it would happen after years of creating bombs that killed families and loved ones and friends and partners. I knew it. But I let it happen. I went to work and I left her alone and when I came home from work, she was gone. Kidnapped by terrorists. So I did what I had to do. I built that suit, and I went after them. I went after them, and I killed them, and I got her back.

“The moment I won, she started crying. She started telling me that it was nothing to do with me, that it was her bad deeds catching up to her, her red ledger. ‘I dip my hand in the ocean and the entire thing is red, bloody waves churning together,’ she said. ‘I see nothing _but_ red, every day of my life. I can’t repent for this.’ She said she couldn’t keep hurting me this way. So I left, before she could.”

Louis let out a sigh and flopped back against the sofa, wincing when a piece of hardboard hit against his back.

“Love’s shit,” he said simply.

“Not for you,” Zayn said. “You have the world’s most perfect relationship. I have an assassin with a different name every other week.”

*

It was four days to Christmas when the Avengers assembled again, only a week since their last meeting. This time, there wasn’t only the three superheroes and their trio of ordinary counterparts, there was also a very annoyed looking woman with striking blue eyes and long blonde hair tied in a ponytail on the top of her head, firmly determined to either ignore Malik the majority of the time or make his life absolute hell.

“I was going to go back to Moscow this Christmas,” she said to Louis and Harry as they patrolled the streets. It was softly snowing, making the whole day have a hazy sort of feel to it, as if the entire city was enveloped in an Instagram filter. “Moscow is nice this time of year, with all the beer and the fur hats and the Russian party games. I haven’t been back there since a couple moons ago – met an asshole, but that’s history – and I suppose I won’t go back now, either, because that same asshole has fucked up so royally. He can’t really do anything without me, to be honest.”

Zayn, of course, wasn’t usually one to let himself be walked all over like this, but for some reason he needed to recruit Louis to rope the girl – Perrie was her latest code name – back in. When Louis pointed out that he was perfectly capable of dealing with this himself – “You’re fucking Iron Man, for God’s sake!” – Zayn went all quiet and refused to say anything, so Louis had given up trying. Besides, Malik had turned out to be a good mate after all, and he didn’t really want to ruin their developing friendship.

“I quite like Perrie, I think,” Harry said. The Avengers were rotating around the humans, and it had only taken four hours for Harry to get to him. Louis felt as if the world was less sane when he wasn’t around, and with one touch the younger boy brought everything back into focus.  Everything was better with Harry beside him.

“Not as much as you like me, I would hope,” Louis said, bumping their hips together lightly. He was wearing a large winter coat, one of Harry’s, and he could see the appreciation of his clothing choice reflected in the green of his boyfriend’s irises. And he loved him, goddamnit he loved him so much it made it hard to _breathe_ sometimes.

“Of course not,” Harry exclaimed in mock despair. “How could anybody add up to you in my eyes, baby?”

“I love you it when you call me baby,” Louis smirked, pressing his head into Harry’s shoulder as they walked, no matter how awkward it was to do so. A few passersby actually managed a fleeting smile at the couple before the irritation of the holiday season caught up with them once more.

“You know what I would love?” Harry said. Louis lifted his head up again and looked up at him, interested. “A baby.”

Louis let out a loud, brief laugh, but upon realising that Harry wasn’t joining in stopped abruptly.

“Are you being serious?”

“Well, maybe not right now, but soon, I think. I really want a kid sometime, and I want to have one with someone I love and all...”

“Are you telling me you love me then, Styles?” Louis asked. He was smiling so widely now he must’ve looked like a Cheshire cat – it was somewhat embarrassing how happy Harry made him with just existing. “Even as young as we are?”

“I don’t just love you, Lou,” Harry said, so sappily that Louis could almost hear Niall vomiting from ten streets away. “I would share my last cookie with you. Seriously, now, I mean it.”

Louis let out a gasp. “That’s pretty hardcore,” he said. “I think you might just be smothering me. I’m going to have to take a step back.”

“That’s just mean,” Harry pouted, turning his attention back to the street in front of him. He wasn’t wearing his suit, obviously, to avoid detection, but Louis could see Mjölnir in his satchel. “I’ll get you for that later.”

The laugh that escaped his lips at that didn’t sound human, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but Harry, at least until he heard the blood-curdling screams coming from the next street and the entire flirtatious mood was destroyed.

He was pretty sure the filter smashed – leaving behind it the harsh reality that New York was no more beautiful in winter than anywhere else was. It was just another grimy city, after all.

Mjölnir immediately whipped out of the bag and set itself into Harry’s hands. Before Louis knew quite what was happening Harry had grabbed him and was flying up through the sky with Louis in his strong arms, the cold air battering against their skin.

Louis was grabbing on so tightly, slightly slipping, but just as he felt himself falling Harry stopped. He had set him down on top of an apartment block, with his coat whipping back and forth in the winter breeze.

“Stay,” Harry said, touching Louis’ shoulders. Louis frowned and opened his mouth to protest (a variety of words his mother wouldn’t have been proud of came to the forefront of his mind) but Harry zoomed off, hovering over the street from which the screams came and then eventually plunging downwards, his eyes focused on something in particular.

Louis knew what Harry was trying to do. He’d watched enough superhero movies to realise the boy was trying to protect him. But he would be damned if he was going to chill out here and not at least _try_ to do something useful.

He looked around, desperately taking in everything around him. There was absolutely nothing on the roof besides some pieces of paper – looked like the New York Times – and a couple pigeons getting funky with it (he had to look away, because _really?_ ).

This was going to be a challenge, he thought as a loud, deafening crash erupted from the street.

But he’d be damned if he was letting Harry fight this battle on his own.

*

When Louis arrived and joined Niall and Eleanor who were hiding in one of the small side streets watching the Avengers get blasted around by tornadoes, he really _really_ wanted to tell them all about how he got down from the roof using only the newspaper scraps and a couple paper clips he found in his pocket, but he got the distinct idea that they were so focused on the battle that they wouldn’t have given the story the attention it deserved. Therefore, he put a reminder on his phone, just so he could tell it dramatically over a drink later that night with Harry, who would be so duly captivated by the tale that he would overlook the boy’s complete disregard of his instruction.

 “What’s happening?” he settled on asking instead, and Eleanor leaned in closely to him at the same time as Niall did so they all ended up crashing heads.

“Harry kicks _ass,”_ Niall whistled lowly, once they had all recovered. “He’s made thunder appear at least three times now... he’s knocking out those sand monster things like hell...”

“We haven’t located Adamina yet,” Eleanor said. She was holding a laptop now and was wearing an earpiece. Louis imagined that each Avenger had one too, because she passed him one which he took and activated immediately. “We’re not quite sure where she is.”

“Why not check the eye of the tornadoes?” Louis suggested, pointing towards the exact location on the screen. “All the other ones are circulating around that one. It would make sense.”

“The only problem is civilians,” Niall explained. “We managed to vacate everywhere but that office building.” He pointed towards a very tall, very expensive looking skyscraper. People were scurrying around inside, ducking under desks and screaming as the windows crashed.

“Exactly,” Louis said. Niall and Eleanor shot each other a glance that said, ‘Ignore him, he doesn’t know what he’s saying’ so he rolled his eyes and turned around so that they couldn’t see him.

“Harry,” Louis tested. “Harry, baby, are you there? Harry?”

_“Lou? Is that you?”_

“Yeah, it’s me. I have a bone to pick with you, buddy.”

_“What point don’t you get about stay?!”_

“I’m helping whether you like it or not, mate.”

_“Don’t call me ‘mate’. We fuck sometimes. A lot, actually.”_

“Just shut up and listen, okay?” Louis paused and turned around. Niall and Eleanor were back to watching Black Widow crushing the creature’s heads in between her legs, so he knew they wouldn’t notice him sending Harry to do something completely reckless/stupid. “You see the tornadoes?”

_“How exactly could I miss them?”_

“No time for sass, darling.”

_“Sorry, babe. Habit.”_

“They’re all going in circles around the main big one. That means that Adamina must be in the middle – the eye. If you could get there, you could summon a thunderstorm and use her powers against her.”

_“Couldn’t I get swept away in the process?”_

“Use Mjölnir. It’ll take you through, hopefully. That’s what happened in ‘ _Thor: The Dark World_ ’ anyway.”

_“You’re so thorough in your research, baby, it astounds me.”_

“Styles, do you think it’s a good idea or not?”

_“... Do you want me to do it?”_

“This isn’t about me.”

_“Everything is about you now. Every breath I take, Louis. This is all for you. If you wanted me to give this all up and move to Alaska tomorrow, I’d do it. Don’t test me.”_

Louis felt a sharp tightening in his chest, something that felt like a gunshot, but he had long since recognised as pangs of love.

“Then yes. I want you to do it. People could die if you don’t.”

_“... Stay on the line, babe, okay? I love you.”_

“Stop being so sappy you prick. Just go grab her and be done with it.”

And because Harry was so whipped and desperately in love with him – and Louis knew that, too, which is why it was probably mean for him to exploit it – he did it without another second of hesitation.

*

Louis’ plan might’ve worked. It might’ve. There was just the minor flaw that he hadn’t thought about, and that was Harry dropping the hammer mid tornado and getting thrown out of the thing, landing right in Zayn’s arms.

Part of the idea _did_ go to plan, though, and it was the section that was more important anyways. The second Harry infiltrated the winds, Adamina appeared through them, her eyes a piercing serpent green and her body covered in twigs and leaves.

Her skin was broken in places, smashed like delicate porcelain, and there were small cracks in it like there was in the earth during a drought. She was captivating, in the kind of way that only villains can be – she was a force to be reckoned with, a bomb waiting to explode. She looked crazy, like she was being spurred onwards by some bizarre mixture of passion and fear, and suddenly, Louis found himself connecting with her.

“You dare to try and defy me?” the villain cried out. All of the mud creatures disappeared back onto the pavement, and the tornadoes vanished to a faint breeze. Perrie was the only one who kept her gun trained on Adamina, but perhaps that was because the woman hadn’t yet seen the agent – she was behind her, right out of her line of sight. “You dare try and defy the mighty Rocksy?”

Louis blinked a couple of times, and then, not quite able to stop himself, moved out of the alleyway. Two pairs of green eyes were trained on him, one whispering, “What the hell are you doing” and the other with a smirk printed upon her face.

“Rocksy,” Louis repeated, quite dumbfounded. “Out of all of the super-villain names you could have come up with, you chose Rocksy.”

The smirk was wiped quite abruptly, and instead irritation laced her every feature. “I mean... It’s like Roxy, you know, but with Rocks in it because you know...”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Louis said, trying desperately not to laugh and probably failing. “That’s not the problem. It’s just... you chose a pun. A pun. Puns don’t strike fear into the hearts of people. Puns make people want to kiss you.”

This time she looked even more confused, as did the rest of the Avengers, but Harry was dimpling away now, so radiant that it was quite easy to ignore the increasing wind speeds.

“I didn’t come to talk to you about my name,” she announced impressively, breaking the gaze between blue and green for what would be the first time of many. “I came to get back what is rightfully mine – the Tesseract!”

She pulled a staff out from behind her back. It was fashioned out of an old twig and vines wrapped around a shining metal, vaguely reminiscent of the type used to make Liam’s shield. Eleanor, who had been attempting desperately to pull Louis back into the alleyway for a good amount of time now, let out a microscopic gasp, and before they knew quite what was happening a flash of green light was heading towards them.

Niall let out a loud yell of “No!” and tried to jump in front of them. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much aim, and so he ended up barely grasping onto the end of Eleanor’s trousers, but it was enough to ensure he was trapped in the green bubble that was materialising around the trio, bringing them up further.

Harry advanced forwards hurriedly and jumped up with Mjölnir, intent on crashing it against the surface. Zayn also levitated, bringing Perrie up with him, who had one arm around his suit and the other holding a large and rather impressive gun. Liam threw his shield, and Louis could hear it whipping through the air towards them, cutting like a knife, mere centimetres in front of his eyes...

Before any of them could reach the three, they disappeared, and were greeted with nothing but darkness and a spine tingling cackle.

*

“Where are we?”

Louis rubbed his head, which was throbbing now, as if someone had bashed against it repeatedly. When he moved his fingers away, there was blood dripping down off of them – he almost had to stop himself from being sick, although that might’ve just been the lightness of his head talking.

Eleanor was near him, and she was the one who had spoken. She was covered in dust and her usually perfect hair was scuffled upwards and sticking out in random places, but other than that, she was practically unscathed. She was curled around Niall, slapping his face to get him out of his groggy state.

“Are you dead?” she asked repeatedly in his ear, increasing in volume each time even though he had already groaned ‘no’ at least four times before.  Louis rubbed against the cut on his head once more, trying not to wince as he got to his feet slowly, nearly toppling over a few times.

“It looks like an earthquake just hit,” Louis mused, as Eleanor pulled a reluctant Niall up from the ground. He was fighting her, but she was stronger than her thin frame represented, and eventually she won (obviously).

They were standing in a place that looked as if it had been through twenty years of drought. There was so blue in the sky – in fact, Louis couldn’t even _see_ the sky. He couldn’t see anything besides murky dustiness. The air was thick and heavy, more humid that he had ever experienced before, and it was making him want to fall to the ground and just go to s _leep,_ leave all of it behind, leave Harry behind...

“Harry,” Louis said suddenly. “Harry will be worrying. We need to get back.”

“Well what way do we go?” Eleanor questioned. Niall had buried his head in her shoulder and appeared to be crying. Louis wondered whether he might have a concussion, but he couldn’t do much for him here – they needed to get out first.

“Just choose a direction,” Louis suggested. “And follow it. We don’t have much time...”

“There isn’t enough time in the world,” an eerie voice cut through the darkness, sending shivers up Louis’ spine that were nothing like those Harry left with his fingertips. An almost microscopic whisper followed. “I’m sorry about this.”

The fog evaporated so blindingly quickly that Louis couldn’t even blink before he was thrust into a warehouse. Eleanor and Niall landed near him, but it was a soft bump and so they were all still on their feet. It was better lit there, at least, and the soft going down of the sun over the city was visible out of the tall windows. Industrial lights above them were flickering, but other than that, there was nothing but a couple of workbenches and a few obviously locked doors.

If this was Rocksy’s plan, it wasn’t a very good one – a couple of minutes to convince Niall and they would be able to give each other boosts up through the window. Louis remained silent, waiting for something else to happen.

Ultimately, it did.

The dirt on the floor started circulating around itself in a flurry of excitement, forming like a tsunami of earth – slowly, with impending force, and then all at once, tearing the place apart.

It was large, and unidentifiable as any animal in particular; in fact, it seemed to be an amalgamation of the most terrifying parts of each organism. There was the teeth of a wolf, the head of a lion, the legs of a horse, the body of a panther and the tail of a monkey.

Louis stood for a few minutes, stupefied, staring at the creature.

“Have fun, boy,” Adamina cooed, still nowhere to be seen. The creature let out a deafening roar, nearly blowing all of Louis’ hair off of his head, and that was enough to break him out of his terror and push him to run, both Eleanor and him dragging Niall along, who wasn’t even screaming, just staring at the thing.

It was catching up on them, Louis could tell by the way that the lights were thrashing around, the creature so large as to be hitting them –

-  his feet were tripping over wires on the ground, stumbling against the harsh concrete of the floor -

– his legs were beginning to hurt, beginning to burn the way they did when he used to play football, before all those boys teased him so much he quit -

– his lungs were collapsing in on themselves -

\-- blood was falling down onto his face from his head, and Niall was going greyer by the moment --

“What’s the plan?” he screamed to Eleanor, who must’ve barely heard him over the crashing behind them and the yelps of the creature.

“I don’t – I don’t know,” she responded helplessly. She was finding it hard to run in her shoes – they were Niall’s old white Converse, and they were at least three sizes too big for her. “I can’t keep running.”

“Neither can I,” Louis yelled back. All that he could think was _Harry Harry Harry he must be worrying Harry Harry Harry I can’t leave him Harry Harry Harry_ and it was deafening, it was all that he could hear, all that his brain could process. With each whisper of his love’s name, he ran a little faster, determined that if he just kept going he’d find a way back to him...

But they were running out of warehouse, they were going to have to turn around at some point...

“The wardrobe!” Eleanor gasped, pointing in front of her with her free arm. Louis followed her gesture, and right enough there was a large supply closet with thick metal doors right in front of them.

“El, take Ni!” he snapped, pushing the blond boy into his friend’s arms. Eleanor nodded desperately and kept running, significantly slower than she had been with Louis, but by the time she reached the wardrobe Louis had managed to push one of the rolling desks in front of the creature, tripping it up.

It let out a piercing scream, and Louis immediately thought how maybe that wasn’t a good plan, but he didn’t have time.

Eleanor grabbed onto his collar and pulled him back into the closet, shutting the door hurriedly behind them.

She pulled down the lock, jamming a piece of metal off the floor into it to ensure it held up against the relentless poundings of the beast. Niall was lying in the corner, his eyes drifting shut, and Louis did the only thing he could think of.

He slapped him.

“Don’t fall asleep, you gap-shite,” Louis scolded, ignoring the dirty look and the extension of the middle finger Niall gave him. “Just stay awake, stay awake for two more minutes, okay?”

“What are we going to do?” Eleanor asked. She was alternating between tending to Niall and pushing yet more things up against the door, although it was a pointless exercise – with each kick and punch the creature delivered everything fell back onto the trio. “ ** _Louis_**. What are we going to do?!”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Louis yelled, holding his head. It was the most pain he had ever felt – it was as if a marching band was pounding all over his brain, drumming their drums in the most incessant rhythm, the hardest they had ever played. “Harry will come for me, Harry, Harry Harry Harry...”

“He’s not here, Louis!”

“But he will be!”

“We need to think of a way out of this ourselves,” Eleanor chastised, grabbing Louis by his upper arms. “We’re trained to come up with things quickly. Come on, Lou. You’re the smartest guy I know. Think.”

“I can’t – I can’t...” Louis looked around hurriedly, scanning every part of the closet. There wasn’t much in there that they hadn’t knocked over and broken – there were a few gas masks, shovels, pieces of forgotten metal, wrenches, hammers, but nothing that could take down that thing...

And if Liam couldn’t beat the monsters (and he was the strongest man Louis had ever goddamn met) then how could he? How could Louis – a weakling by comparison, a mortal, nothing special about him – do what no super-hero could?

“We can’t beat it,” he told Eleanor, and before she could protest, he shushed her. “No, listen. We can’t beat it, but we can outrun it.”

“Explain that, Tomlinson,” Eleanor snapped. Niall had perked up a little bit, but he was still in no position to help much. Louis wracked his brain for an answer, and finally, in the flurry of epiphany that most of his conclusions came to him, it appeared.

“Grab a shovel,” he told Eleanor, passing her one up from the ground and grabbing a hammer himself. “You see that wall there? This closet isn’t a closet; it’s a room. And this wall is made out of bricks. You know what that means?”

“It’s an outside wall?” Eleanor suggested. He could see in her hazel eyes she had understood.

“Exactly,” he said confidently. “And this is an old warehouse. This means they won’t have used the same concrete we would today... Water damage, damp and heat have done half our job already. Just target the cracks in the brick, and if we can get one out, we can...”

Eleanor threw the shovel back behind her as he spoke, and, using the momentum, slammed it against the wall with such surprising force Louis found himself appreciating her just a little bit more.

“Again!” he called out. “You’re doing well.”

He started on it along with her, and within moments they had formed an alternating pattern of hits against one crack in particular. The wall wept in agony, breaking down under their anger and desperation, and eventually, the brick fell apart completely.

“Push it out now, that’s the girl,” Louis said. Eleanor obliged, and the brick popped out onto the ground below. Louis knelt down and started tearing away at the bricks around it with his bare hands, knowing that the creature was mere moments away from breaking through...

The cold air of the outside world rushed against his bruised and bloodied skin, and when he eventually managed to get out, it tasted like freedom on his tongue. He let out a triumphant “Yes!” and then went back to help Eleanor pull Niall through.

The moment their feet hit the wet, sopping grass, they broke into a sprint, kept alive by the adrenalin pumping through their veins. Eleanor let out a loud yell, the kind that were shouted by middle aged men at football matches, but Louis could think of only one thing.

“I’m coming, Harry.”

*

“I need to go and try to find them,” Harry demanded, throwing the hammer at a couple more monsters and waiting for it to return to him.

They were in the thick of battle now – all of the mud underneath the pavements had torn through them and was forming into hideous beasts.

Zayn was floating slightly above them, blasting the ones that threatened Perrie mostly (although that was an observation reserved solely for Harry, Perrie seemed to have no idea) and Liam was using military-style precision to take out as many as he could using underhanded tactics. “They’re fast, but they’re not very smart,” he had commented. “Use that against them.”

“No,” Perrie said to him, as she blasted the heads off a particularly ugly dirt-warthog. “You’re not leaving. What if Adamina comes back? Then what?”

“Pez is right,” Zayn said, lowering down onto the ground beside Harry. He and Perrie had worked together before, and that much was perfectly clear – in between bouts of speech, Perrie rolled over onto Zayn’s back and used his strength to fly at a few of the bigger monsters, taking them to the ground. “It’s too dangerous, Harry, and you’re the most powerful one here.”

“But my boyfriend,” Harry exclaimed. Angry tears threatened to fall, but he was determined not to appear weak. “She’s got my boyfriend! Who knows what she’s doing to him...”

“Louis is a big boy,” Liam said harshly, not that Harry could blame him – he was taking the brunt of the damage, given his physical contact with the monsters. Perrie was also cradling a twisted arm. “He’ll be able to look after himself.”

“That’s just it, though,” Harry said, shaking his head. Mjölnir seemed to be feeding off of his frustration, because it was tearing through the streets, destroying everything in its way. “He doesn’t have to. That’s why he has me. I’m with him till the end of the line.”

Liam gave a strained laugh and shook his head. “Don’t use that against me,” he said. His eyes looked watery. “Bucky was a real person, you know. Believe me, I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”

“I haven’t lost Louis yet though,” Harry pointed out, deciding that a time for comforting would come later, when they weren’t in imminent danger of dying. “How about I go, and you guys can stay here... Maybe me and Perrie...”

“No!” Zayn declared, flicking up the mask. His face was so defiant that Harry felt about five inches tall. “You’re not dragging Perrie into some kind of rescue mission. She’s staying here with me, where she belongs.”

“He can drag me into whatever he pleases,” Perrie snapped. “You don’t own me, Zayn. You never did. We’ve been over this. I’m untameable.”

“I need to go,” Harry said. The influx of monsters seemed to pause for a moment as the group stared at each other, as if merely their eyes would communicate the answer they all desired. “I’m going. I don’t care, I’m going. Louis is the only person I’ve ever really... Louis is the only reason I fight.”

Zayn opened his mouth to agree, but not before Liam shook his head vehemently.

“Think for a minute, Malik,” he demanded. “Harry will be dead if we let him go...”

“He’s got Mjölnir.”

“He’s just a human, Malik!” Liam yelled, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend why Zayn didn’t understand.

“So am I! So are you!” Zayn exclaimed. “What else is a hero, really, other than a human determined to be extraordinary, determined to make a difference?”

That was the argument won, really.

*

They were about five miles from the city when a crash of thunder echoed above their heads, scaring Niall out of his restlessness. Lightning ripped the sky, limb from limb, dashing through the clouds, charging them with energy.

The entire city was alive, really, flickering on and off with the lightning, buildings being tested against their resistance, lightning rods quivering with the sensations.

The warehouse that they had left behind lit up like a rave, lightning dancing around it, breaking the bricks apart with such ease that Louis found it quite unbelievable.

“Is that Adamina?” Niall coughed, his knuckles white from gripping onto Louis’ shirt.

Louis shook his head, smiling more than he had for days.

“No. That’s my boy.”

*

Adamina was cuffed and chained by the time the Avengers dragged themselves back to Malik Tower, broken and bloodied. Her previously beautiful hair was a frizzy mess, and there were the distinct markings of someone hit by lightning dancing along her skin. Louis imagined it was her earth powers that let her survive; he was pretty sure Harry hadn’t intended to kill her anyways, although what did Louis _really_ know about him anyways? He had never before seen the intensity in Harry’s eyes as he pushed the captive towards the police officers.

Niall was being tended to by a very pretty and kind nurse, and Eleanor was hovering around, pouting pathetically. The blond boy responded by reaching upwards, cupping her face in his hands and bringing her lips down to his in a gentle, loving kiss.

“Girlfriend,” he said, pointing to her, his strength returned once more.

“Boyfriend,” she replied instantly, pointing back at him.

“I’m so glad we didn’t die before I could do that,” he mumbled, smirking as he did so. Eleanor laughed, quite pink in the face, and grabbed him again, pulling him into a rough embrace.

Liam had disappeared at some point with misty eyes and wringing hands, dressed in dark clothing. Louis couldn’t get much out of him as he exited the tower apart from that he’d been reminded about someone and had to go to visit them – when he returned, he had a single white rose in his lapel, which Louis imagined had came from a bouquet. Liam didn’t talk much after that. It seemed as if he was missing someone, but Louis couldn’t think of who.

Zayn changed out of the suit as soon as he got back and immediately went for the alcohol. He was puffing on a cigarette, leaning against his window amongst the rubble of his office that hadn’t yet been cleared up when Perrie appeared back from the hospital. She had a sling around her arm holding up a cast, and with a sheepish grin she passed a Sharpie over to the sharp featured boy, who had became so much softer with her presence.

“Can you sign it, Mr. Malik?” she asked carefully, tenderly, as if it meant something else. It was spoken like a peace treaty, a declaration of what would be, and Zayn had no other choice than to nod, swallow thickly, and take the pen from her small, dainty hands. The hands that had seen so many horrors, yet Zayn was so utterly blind to recognise.

He moved the pen with fluency over her cast, watching as the ink sunk into the material, like the indent she had left upon his heart so long ago. When she looked down to admire the swirled writing she adored so deeply, she saw more words than she had expected inscribed upon her bandaging:

_‘Marry me, Agent? – Malik.’_

The last person to return was Harry, which was unfortunate, because he was also the only one Louis wanted to see. Louis wanted to take the other boy’s hand in his, and he wanted to kiss him all over his face, especially that pretty little nose, and he wanted to grab onto his hips and lick over the laurel tattoos and never let him go again because God, if he hadn’t been terrified as well as turned on when he saw him wielding that hammer (pun unintended).

He didn’t get a chance to do any of that.

Harry put his hand up against Louis’ jawbone, rubbing his thumb over the older boy’s hairline. Louis let out a deep, shuddering breath, only realising that he had been holding it for days when Harry’s fingers were pressed against his skin.

“We’re okay, baby,” Harry mused, his lips drifting over Louis’ as he spoke, so that he could just barely taste the mint off his mouth. “Aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” Louis whispered, closing the gap between their lips.

“Just don’t do that again.”

Louis let out a laugh, burying his face into the nook between Harry’s jaw and his shoulder. Harry bent down slightly to allow him easier access, a small dimpled grin on his face at the feel of Louis’ stubble against the gentleness of his skin.

“Louis,” Harry repeated. “Seriously, don’t do that again, okay? We both know what happened to Gwen Stacy.”

“But I’m not Gwen Stacy,” Louis replied slowly, sending little kisses up Harry’s neck tantalisingly. But he was definitely not trying to make him forget about the conversation – definitely not.

“No, you’re not,” Harry murmured, suppressing a groan. “You’re my Jane.”

Louis smiled at Harry, sentiment dripping off his features.

**_“And you’re my Thor.”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second part of the 'assemble' trilogy of oneshots! I am almost done the last part, and I am very excited about the third part in particular. I hope you've enjoyed this part, and please leave kudos and comments, they are really encouraging and they persuade me to write so much more. Thank you once again for your support and fic recs xx


	3. Last Groomsman Standing

_I've got nothing left to live for_ __  
Got no reason yet to die  
But when I'm standing in the gallows  
I'll be staring at the sky  
Because no matter where they take me  
Death I will survive  
And I will never be forgotten  
With you by my side.

-          **_Somebody to Die For_**

*******

Liam could feel the blood pooling in his red fingertips, could hear the desperate pounding of his heart in his ears. His fists battered against the punching bag, leaving little marks on his skin that disappeared almost as fast as they came. He kicked it a few times, swore a few times, and cursed Malik a few times for developing a stronger chain for his workout bag.

He jumped up, grabbed onto the chain, and snapped it right in half, wincing slightly as the metal clanged to the wooden floor of the gym.

The sweat was pooling down his forehead, but it was nothing to do with the exercise. It hadn’t been doing anything to calm his anger, mostly because Liam had always been the type of person to want to _be_ hurt whilst feeling so. Now that he couldn’t use that coping mechanism anymore and hadn’t had the time to find a new one, he was finally realising something that should’ve been a relatively simple conclusion; he wasn’t coping very goddamn well.

He went over to the wall and grabbed his water bottle, leaning on his hands against the brick as he scrunched the plastic. It was a soothing sound, somehow, and one that had previously been foreign to him in his birth-time of 1919.

Liam furrowed his eyebrows together. He hadn’t thought about that for some time; he had always been quick at adapting, and so two years was all he needed to get used to the new fangled machine guns and nuclear warfare. Really, those were the only two topics he felt the need to get accustomed to; Star Wars and President Obama and iron suits remained foreign to him.

He landed with a light thump on the floor, and he rested his head against the cool brick wall of the studio. The apartment which S.H.I.E.L.D had provided for him was good for only two things, and that was its proximity to the gym and its views of New York City, which Liam could say he was still stupefied by, even after twenty four months. After all, he had lived and died in Interwar Britain, with the Union Jack flying high above his head and the grimy streets of London underneath his feet. He wasn’t used to the hustle and bustle and the American accents – he wasn’t even sure if he particularly _liked_ them. And it felt weird to be called Captain America, even if that was where he ‘died’ and was found once more – this wasn’t really his country.

It was the same colour flag, Liam supposed, and he had never been particularly patriotic towards one country in particular – it was all for the Allies and all against the Germans in his mind, nothing more simple or complicated than that. It was easy enough to learn the various different presidencies that he had missed out on and to try and comprehend the fall of the Berlin Wall, but there were other things (like ‘twerking’, he much preferred the Charleston) that still baffled him, and he wasn’t afraid to make that point perfectly clear to Malik on regular occasions.

“ _Malik is a good friend_ ,” Liam mused to himself as he took a sip of his (filtered, from Scottish mountains) water. “ _He’s a good friend, and a good man, and that should be all I need really to enjoy this time. A good friend.”_

He let out a deep, all encompassing sigh and stared ahead of him, where the yellow paint on the opposite wall was peeling from the damp in the corners. Malik was a good man, he knew that, but... he’d known him for all of two years, when he would’ve known Bucky for eighty-nine years, if they both hadn’t have... kicked the bucket, as it were.

Two six year olds without a care in the world. Two six year olds who had no idea what their mothers meant when they spoke of after-war rationing and bomb raid shelters, who only understood that their fathers had left and died for a worthy cause. They didn’t need to understand why it _was_ worthy, just that it was, just like how they didn’t need to understand _why_ their mothers were crying so much in between gushing over how heroic their men were, not until it was them with caps placed on their heads and a too-heavy gun shoved into their teenaged hands, sent to “kill as many as you can, we take no prisoners” (although now, Liam realised, to say that was politically incorrect).

They were sixteen years old when him and Bucky first tried to get into the armed forces, all pink faced and cheeky smiles, all hitting each other playfully and butterflies in their stomach when they looked at each other (although Liam realised now that wasn’t quite normal for best friends, although there were all kinds of relationships nowadays that wouldn’t be considered normal back in his time).

The balding old man with the bags under his eyes looked up at the teenagers - the teenagers eager to go out and blindly follow whatever orders their superiors gave to them - and let out an audible sigh.

“You’re too young, boys,” the man said, in a measly sort of voice that Bucky would make fun of for days afterwards, much to Liam’s amusement. “Come back in a couple years, okay? I’m sure it’ll still be going on.” (The man would be right, of course, but Liam wouldn’t be around to see it.)

Britain became desperate soon into the war. It was as if they had learnt nothing from the first one, Liam’s mother muttered to her other widowed girlfriends over a cuppa, because they went in with such enthusiasm that this would be the shortest war only to be pushed back at every hurdle. Germany was stronger this time – much stronger, and Liam became more and more frustrated with the idea that he was being held back. He could do this, he knew he could do it, because when he thought of his father and Bucky’s father, he was filled with a sort of fire that burnt up all inside of him, a kind of fire that made him feel invincible, even in his scrawny young frame.

Bucky suggested on Liam’s seventeenth birthday that they try again, and begrudgingly Liam – who wasn’t particularly fond of criticism or rejection – accepted and went with him, just because Bucky was pleading with those wide blue eyes and an absolutely endearing pouty face.

This time, they were accepted, and their mothers celebrated this accomplishment by going out dancing with their boys for what was the first time in what seemed like forever, because now both of them were working all of the time to keep their families out of the gutters. They danced all night, him and Bucky, sometimes with their mothers, sometimes with random girls made up too prettily and with too soft hands, and sometimes (the times in which Liam found it quite hard to breathe) they danced with each other.

It wasn’t slow dancing, of course, it was grabbing onto each other’s arms and performing a mostly comedic parody of the swing and Charleston, but it was also the closest Liam had been to Bucky in a while and so it felt... nice, he supposed. Nice seemed like a bit of a weak word, when he thought of it.

After that, the novelty of being a soldier quickly became a harsh and brutal reality. Liam remembered, perhaps in more vivid terms than anything else in his life, the stench of the bus they got onto on their way to war; the different soldiers, some of them shaking with suppressed terror, some conscripted, some youngsters who had snuck their way in and were insanely regretting it now. And then there were the usual ‘perfect’ stereotypes, unwavering in their strength, untouchable and inevitably strong in every aspect of battle.

Liam didn’t regret to admit that for once, he was one of the perfect ones. He was one of the ones the other boys either envied, or wanted to be. He had many friends in the barracks and trenches, many friends who looked up to him and took every word he spoke to be pure and honest truth. But of course, his favourite was always Bucky.

Perhaps it was his newfound popularity and confidence that attracted their attention. Perhaps it was the legacy his father, a commander, had left behind and some of it had fallen onto his only son. Maybe it was just the fact that he was the first to volunteer for everything, the first to hit the target with the gun, the first to jump over a bomb that didn’t end up going off, because it wasn’t his time yet.

Maybe it was a mixture of all of these, but Liam found himself moving so quickly through the ranks of war that it became a blur for him. Most people would be put off by this – Bucky had always been the ladies’ man, the intelligent one, the one who got all of the answers right all of the time. But now it was Liam who was the brunt of peoples’ attentions, and Bucky was loving it almost as much as Liam was. He knew how much the other boy needed it.

Liam brought it up to his friend a particularly chilly night, when the lights above them kept flickering on and off, and the crashes of planes being shot out of the sky was running through their minds. He was attempting – pathetically – to drown out the sounds of dying with his meagre conversation, and Bucky was playing along for everything it was worth.

“Thank you, Buck,” Liam murmured, reaching his fingers out to the other boy, who was too close yet far too far away. He hoped, in a way, that they wouldn’t reach him in the dimness of the night – it would be too many questions if they did (they never managed to, and Liam wasn’t quite sure what to think of that).

“What for?” the other boy murmured, turning over on his grubby pillow. His face was illuminated by the brief interludes of light, and his lips were bruised and bloody from the amount he bit them nowadays. (Liam was beginning to regret ever going to war, but he would never admit that to anyone, not even Bucky.)

“For being there,” Liam whispered softly. His heart was burning up inside of him, flaring bright, blazing red, and it was there and it was pounding in his throat, threatening to choke him, and he wasn’t sure why it was this way. It was just two friends talking, after all – just two friends talking.

One of those friends had really nice eyes. Really nice eyes that made Liam wonder why he had never noticed them before.

Bucky smiled lazily, sleepily, at him, in the way that he always did when Liam said something stupid.

“You don’t have to thank me, Li,” Bucky said, lightly but so clear, as clear as crystal.  “I’m with you, till the end of the line.”

And that was all the encouragement Liam needed to throw himself more wholeheartedly than ever before into the drills and the ‘yes sirs’ and the throwing-himself-in-front-of-grenades. He rose up through the ranks in an almost unprecedented way, followed almost entirely by approving hums from the commanders and rolling eyes of a few jealous perfectionists. His esteem only reached a plateau because of his age, but the superiors promised that the moment he reached twenty-one, he would be a general of his very own troop.

1939 came. It had been a long, drawn out war. By the end, Liam found out almost immediately after being unfrozen, sixty million people were killed.

Sixty million. Sixty million people just like Bucky, with bright eyes and sarcastic tongues and beautiful, tough, calloused hands and their father’s name as their own.

They were wading through swamped forestlands, the dirt clinging to their boots and dragging them back when it happened. Liam supposed he should’ve known – he had always had an affinity with the earth, and he figured that then, in that moment, it was screaming for him to turn back, to grab Bucky and to run back to their small shared flat in London, back to their mothers who were even more heartbroken because Bucky’s little sister, his gorgeous little sister, had been killed by a German bomb raid. But Liam being Liam, he didn’t listen. He kept walking, kept stomping, kept encouraging the others to follow him no matter how terrified they appeared.

Their group was ambushed. By who, Liam could never have told – it wasn’t recorded in the history books. Both sides were merging together anyways, in his mind, it was just that one of them had an extremist leader with a moustache and the other a ‘democratic’ president who allowed the blacks to be killed without batting an eyelash.

Liam couldn’t tell what he was fighting for anymore. Not until they got Bucky.

Everything became focused, hyper focused, like some sort of simulation. It didn’t feel real, it didn’t feel as if this could actually be happening. His rock, his anchor, was being dragged away by two hooded figures with guns pointed at his head, threatening his perfect, beautiful mind, leaving bruises on the sides of his cheeks. Liam felt like he had been punched repeatedly in the stomach, like he was writhing and bellowing on the floor. He was screaming so loud and for so long his lungs were stinging with the friction, but nobody seemed to hear, or to care.

Only Bucky, with his eyes shining in terror and his lips mouthing something Liam couldn’t understand, could hear him, could see the way Liam took bullets in his leg and arm for him, could see how he wasn’t going to let something like light-headed dizziness get in his way. Liam lunged for Bucky, one last time, and his fingers barely drifted the fabric of his uniform.

He blacked out, and when he awoke, he was back in the barracks. Two weeks later, he received a telegraph.

James Buchanan Barnes had been taken as a hostage, a prisoner of war. But of course (and Liam knew this more than anyone) there were no prisoners, not in this war.

Bucky – his Bucky, the Bucky he never managed to tell he loved him – was dead. Dead and gone. Eyes never to open again, laugh never to be heard again, lips never to be kissed again, not by his mother, or his little sister, who was also gone, or that girl in the bar that Bucky had never cared enough to know the name of, the girl with the bright red lipstick and the short dress, the girl who smoked a cigarette on the end of a long stick.

Liam couldn’t give up, he knew that. He didn’t want to be one of those people who died when everything was taken away from him, when he was pushed to the ground bloodied and bruised and the other soldiers looked upon him with pity as he sobbed over an empty coffin because they couldn’t find the body. He didn’t want to be that person. He wanted to be a commander, he wanted to die for his country, or whatever it was he was fighting for today.

It was just that suddenly, things became so much easier to do. It became easier to take a bullet for someone else, because there was the brief chance that it would all be over if he did.

Liam wondered if the war would ever be truly over, or if the world would just keep on hating each other, keep on making each other’s lives miserable until they ran out of room in the libraries to document the deaths. He wondered if there would be another ‘World War’ five years later. He wondered if he would be alive for World War 5.

He knew that, when that war happened, there probably wouldn’t be a world left to fight for.

1940 was the year in which Liam James Payne died. At least, ‘officially’.

He was shot in the abdomen by a rival soldier (or maybe it was one of his own – they were all disorientated and deafened by the everlasting bomb raids above them anyways) and taken into the infirmary. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so much peace in one place – he was of the firm opinion that he’d already felt the pain of being burnt by a thousand suns the moment Bucky was taken from him.

Liam should’ve died then, but he didn’t. The superiors – the ones with the stern faces and the approving hums, the ones who had nothing against Liam but his age – said something about this being the opportune time to try out the ‘serum’, because what could it do besides killing someone who was dying already?

They told him it would make him better. They told him it was a groundbreaking treatment, that when he woke up, the world would be a more beautiful place. He told them that it wouldn’t, because the beauty left in the winter of 1939, but eventually he took it when they said it was a matter of ‘intense military importance’. And God, did Liam love the military.

When he woke up, he was stronger. When he woke up, he was covered in freezing cold water, melted from ice, and surrounded by men he didn’t recognise, men working on weird square things that he had never seen before.

The laboratory those superiors brought him to and made him sign his death away in had been bombed. The scientists and the commanders that survived fled, and when they returned after the war a year later, they searched and searched, but they couldn’t find their underground chamber again. They considered that it had collapsed in on itself, and so they counted their losses – both of the greatest soldier the world had ever seen, and also the research many had spent their lives gathering.

It was the year 2012. The cold temperatures of the machine used for his ‘transformation’ had kept him just above death’s cruel grasp and healed his wounds. He was rediscovered after S.H.I.E.L.D went on a search to find something called the Tesseract.

They found it beside him. They said that it was drawn to him. He didn’t understand.

“Liam.”

A voice from behind him shattered the past and jolted him firmly into the future, which was now the present, when it had been unknown to him before. It was the voice of Louis, the boy who resembled Bucky only vaguely, but just enough that it made Liam hate him for some reason he couldn’t quite understand.

“They’ve found something,” Louis said. His blue eyes drifted over to the punching bag lying on the floor, the chain broken in half, and at the multitude of scrunched plastic bottles littering the gym.

“I’m a bit busy now, Tomlinson,” Liam snapped, running a hand through his sweaty hair. “Can it wait?”

Louis pursed his lips.

“I don’t think you’ll want this to wait,” he said slowly, purposefully, as if there was nothing in the world he was surer of than this. “They’ve found something – something that mattered to you, I think.”

“Nothing matters to me,” Liam mumbled, but he had removed the frown from his handsome features, and so Louis continued.

“They found him in Germany.”

Liam wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t what came next.

“They call him the Winter Soldier.”

*

The morning before the phone call that changed everything was quite possibly the best that Zayn had ever experienced. He supposed that it was the calm before the storm, the love before the heartbreak, the excitement before the disappointment. Everything good in life had to be followed by something bad, but thankfully, it was true the other way around as well. Karma was good in that way.

When he woke up, he felt as if he was back at twenty years old, rather than twenty three; he was scruffy haired and stubbly chinned, and the covers on the other side of the bed were ruffled and crumpled to within an inch of their lives, probably from where Sofie – Perrie – had kicked them off during the night.

She always had nightmares, Zayn remembered. It hadn’t been long enough for him to forget the weeks and months he spent in Moscow, cradling her when she cried at night, saying that it simply that he was freezing in the country he could never call his own when they both knew it was so much more. When she was in his arms, it didn’t feel like he was the protector, although that was his preferred position – it felt as if she was strong enough independently, that she didn’t require his resilience to get her through life.

She was unbreakable, impermeable, never-endingly shattering in her careful detachment and vague ‘ _I love yous’_ that Zayn was falling faster than he had ever felt himself fall before. He was all too aware that there was no parachute on his back, or pillow on the ground to stifle the blow, but for a reason that he couldn’t quite understand he realised the pain that would ultimately come and he _embraced_ it, he clutched onto it for everything that it was worth, because she was worth it, this girl with the changing names and the different hair colour (she had been brunette when he met her).

Everything had changed, he noticed, apart from the blue of her eyes and the softness of her hands, the delicacy of every twist and crevice, every wrinkle and freckle that decorated her porcelain skin. Pure and utter complacency layered Zayn’s every movement as she opened the door to his bedroom, carrying with her a tray with a plate of wheaten bread topped with butter, a weary smile on her exhausted features.

“You always look so tired,” Zayn said when she sat down beside him, setting the breakfast upon his lap. He brought his thumb up to her cheek and stroked along it. Her skin was warm, and she pressed herself further into his touch briefly, barely noticeable, before shifting away once more.

“So do you,” she said, relatively softly. Zayn recognised with a light frown resting in between his eyebrows that she was already dressed for work that day – she was wearing a tight black suit that clung to everywhere Zayn had ever touched and everywhere he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to, and there was a loaded gun hanging over the curve of her waist.

“I have a reason to be tired, though,” Zayn murmured, sitting up in bed with her (his fiancée’s?) assistance. She sat beside him, on top of the covers, and Zayn pretended that he didn’t feel slightly used. “I’m sick.”

He was, of course, referring to the arc reactor in his chest. It pulsed with a light, blue glow, muted only by the magnolia bedspread. Perrie opened her mouth to say something before thinking better of it, and pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead.

“So,” Zayn said, determined not to let her outsmart him as she had done so many times before. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“That’s because it wasn’t a question,” Perrie replied, almost instantaneously. This was one of the many things against Zayn in arguments with her – she knew him all too well. “It was a statement. I thought you were meant to be the English nerd?”

“And I thought you were meant to be a doctor’s daughter,” Zayn responded. “I guess we both lied to each other at some stage.”

Her irises were burning with some incomprehensible force, the same she had delivered to Adamina those months ago, or to the various criminals she had helped Zayn apprehend since.

“What do you want me to say?” she said finally, letting out a sigh.

“I want you to tell me the truth,” he stated simply, taking small bites of the bread even though he wasn’t really hungry, anymore.

Perrie pursed her lips. “Telling the truth isn’t really my forte.”

“Believe me,” Zayn said, smirking. “I know. You had me fooled, Gonzalez, and that’s no mean feat.”

“Edwards,” she corrected. “My name is Perrie Edwards, Zayn. I was never Sofie.”

“You were, once,” Zayn said, when he really meant _you were you were you were Sofie to me and that’s all that matters._

Perrie smiled, a sad sort of smile, as if Zayn was a toddler unable to comprehend something ordinary.

“You speak of her with such fondness,” she said, touching the piece of his chest that was made of metal. He felt his blood begin to pump more rapidly, her breath against his neck, her lips mere inches from his skin. “I’m beginning to believe your heart isn’t as broken as you’d want everyone to believe.”

“You’re the one who fixed it,” Zayn replied slowly, trying not to choke on the words. For some reason, he was near to bursting out in tears. “You are. You helped me when no one else would, even those from my own company.”

“You’ve made a lot of enemies, Zayn,” Perrie said, tracing the various compartments of the arc reactor. “And so have I. Maybe this isn’t the best match.”

This time, his eyes did become wet before he mustered the strength to stop them.

“Are you leaving me?” Zayn asked thickly. “In the same way as I left you years ago? Because that was quite possibly...”

He inhaled sharply.

“The worst mistake I’ve ever made. And I’ve made a lot, so I should know.”

She looked at him for a moment before letting out a sigh. She flopped back against the padded headboard, her blonde hair sprawling out around her as she went.

“I just don’t think you’ve considered this very thoroughly, that’s all,” she said. Her eyes were trained on the ring on her left hand, just underneath her knuckle. The ring that Zayn had bought – for her – years ago, and only just managed to deliver. “I’m not anywhere near what you deserve. Hell, you don’t even know me!”

“I know all I need to,” Zayn replied. The breakfast was now sitting, abandoned, on the bedside table, the toast getting colder by the moment. He took both of her hands in his own, and he noted how warm they were in comparison to his (of course, he was partly metal, it literally ran through his veins). “I know what you look like when you sleep. I know what you like to watch on the TV. I know you love Moscow in the winter, which is fortunate, because it’s all year round, there. I know you’re the best liar I’ve ever met. I know you’re worthy, you’re worthy of anything, and you’re definitely worthy of me.”

There was a brief pause that Perrie seemed determined not to fill.

“In fact, if anything, I don’t deserve you,” Zayn mumbled finally. His voice was getting weaker and weaker by the moment, clouded by emotion. “I don’t deserve you, Sofie, or Perrie, or whoever you are. I don’t deserve any of you. I’m not even a person, by most standards. I’m not even capable of living without this thing.”

He pointed to the reactor with such anger that it jolted slightly in his chest, sending small shockwaves of pain through his veins. He pretended not to notice, because breaking her gaze would be ultimately all the more painful – her eyes were her only weakness.

She bit on her lip until it drew blood and tears ran down her cheeks, silent tears that disappeared as quickly as they had come.

“I just think that you should know everything about someone before you...” she drifted off.

“Marry them?” Zayn suggested. She nodded, swallowing with slight difficulty.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “And I’m not really sure I want to tell you, everything.”

“Why?” Zayn prompted, feeling a wave of irritation surge through him. “Why won’t you? What’s holding you back? Don’t you trust me?”

Perrie looked as if she was going to say no. Instead, she broke Zayn’s gaze and focused on the gun around her belt, the gun specifically designed to her fingerprints, the same gun Zayn himself had created in Moscow as a gift, before he found out her vocation. He tried not to think about how many it had killed. He thought he was done with weapon manufacture.

“I don’t think you’d be able to love me.”

He was about to sigh. He was about to roll his eyes, and start on a passionate and demanding rant about how that was so untrue it physically pained him, that nothing on this earth could make him stop loving her. For God’s sake, she’d lied about everything to him, told him an entire history that was nothing but a falsehood, and he’d still loved her even when all of that was torn away. Shouldn’t that have told her everything she needed?

His chance was squandered by the beeping of the phone beside his bed. He was planning on ignoring it, but by the look on the girl’s face, the conversation was over anyways as far as she was concerned.

He let out a groan and crawled over, grabbing the iPhone and clicking it on. As an afterthought, he placed it on loudspeaker.

“What do you want now?” he asked, rather grumpily. Perrie shot him a look that significantly signalled to ‘be nice’ or something of the sort, but he ignored her. The voice on the other side of the line was slightly static, but comprehensible as Agent Fredrickson, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D mission operatives.

“Fredrickson,” Zayn said, suddenly sitting up straighter. He clicked it off loudspeaker and pressed the phone to his ear, ignoring Perrie’s yell of annoyance, and tried desperately to comprehend his co-worker, but he was speaking so quickly and he sounded so desperate, like another war was about to start. “Fredrickson, what are you doing at S.H.I.E.L.D this early? Fredrickson?”

“They found him, Malik,” the agent spluttered down the phone. He was breathing heavily now, the air hitting the phone at a weird angle, making him sound like Darth Vader. He was sniffling pathetically. At that moment, Zayn wanted nothing more than to be there, to grab Fredrickson by the shoulders and tell him to man up and act like he was trained to, rather than revealing his rather questionable demeanour in the face of evil.

“They found who, Fredrickson?” Zayn asked. When the other man didn’t respond immediately, he repeated himself. His heart was in his throat, and wasn’t helped by the echo of screams in the background. “Who did they find, and what are you freaking out about?”

“The Winter Soldier, Zayn,” Fredrickson said. “The Winter Soldier. They found him... they found him in G-G-Germany.”

He recognised the Winter Soldier, of course he did. He was the same assassin to strike fear into the heart of the Director himself, even many years after his supposed death. He was the same assassin who a young Zayn Malik had been obsessed with learning about, obsessed with bringing to justice before realising that it was another era’s battle, another era that was already gone, an era he wasn’t a part of.

 “It’s James Barnes, Malik,” Fredrickson continued, sounding as terrified as Zayn was beginning to feel. “I have a feeling it’s Barnes. I know it’s Barnes.”

“Who the fuck is Barnes?” Zayn said, furrowing his eyebrows together. He looked up at Perrie, thinking that she might have the answers, and right enough, she did.

‘Liam’s best friend,’ she mouthed. Thankfully, she had taught him how to lip-read in between nights in Moscow. ‘His best friend from the war. James Buchanan Barnes. _Bucky._ ’

“I’m with you to the end of the line...” Zayn said, suddenly understanding. Fredrickson let out one long, drawn out sniffle, and Zayn realised that he was right on the verge of crying– he was desperately trying to hold it all together, and hopelessly failing.

“He told him he was going to be there,” Fredrickson mumbled, barely comprehensible. “He told him he was going to be there, and it’s him, I know it’s him. We have to apprehend him.”

“What, you and me?” Zayn asked. “I have the wedding, you know that...”

“We haven’t even set a date!” Perrie whisper-shouted across the bed. Zayn shushed her, and continued to listen to Fredrickson.

“I wasn’t suggesting me!” Fredrickson exclaimed, the most definite that he had ever sounded in his life. “But if we got the Avengers together... You, Payne, Edwards, Styles... You could do it, you could get him and get out within days, if you worked. We’re under attack right now, from his henchmen, but we’ll get out, we always do... Reinforcements are coming... Malik, you of all people know how important this is, to S.H.I.E.L.D, and... and to Liam.”

He wasn’t convinced, not until Fredrickson spoke once more.

“Imagine losing the person you loved the most.”

Perrie’s eyes were wide and blue and gorgeous and they were piercing right through him, striking him in his non-existent heart, and God, how could he refuse after that?

“I’ll call Tomlinson.”

*

Louis had imagined that there would come a time that he wouldn’t be endlessly endeared by the way in which Harry tripped over his Vans in the hall every single day no matter how many times Louis warned him of it, but it was day 200 of it happening and he enjoyed it just as much as the first.

Their apartment looked as if it had been hit by a bombshell according to Harry, but in Louis’ firm opinion it was just becoming more and more like home. For the years that he had lived in New York prior to their meeting, Louis had existed in the sad state of affairs of a barely furnished apartment; an apartment that had a sofa but no cushions or comfy blankets, a TV that was barely watched and a shower that only saw one person. Now, there were guitars up against the wall, signed footballs littering their bedroom, tattoo ideas sprawled out over the coffee table and a bevy of fresh fruits and vegetables on the dining room table.

In fact, the entire apartment had received a grand home makeover since Harry’s official moving in, and it was barely recognisable as the only place that Louis could find in the city under his price range. Now it was beautiful, messy, homely, and it smelled sweetly of aftershave and Harry’s shampoo (there was also sex in the air, but that would wear off eventually, if they didn’t go for it again that night).

Harry bustled around, once again kicking the Vans into the one storage cupboard they had in the place, with several shirts on one arm and his cape hanging over the other. Mjölnir was somewhere underneath layers of pizza boxes and beer cans, but it was the one thing in the apartment they never lost – in fact, the two boys had designed a system of strapping their keys to the end of the hammer so that when they inevitably misplaced them they’d come flying right back.

Domesticated super-heroism was something that Louis never thought he’d have to deal with. Of course, he also hadn’t predicted the presence of a gangly barely six foot teenager in his life either, but these were semantics.

Louis was in love with Harry, desperately so, but he also wasn’t listening to a word the other boy said. The moment Louis registered ‘paint colours for the bathroom’ he completely zoned out, knowing that Harry would contemplate this for a while before coming up with the answer himself anyways, leaving Louis feeling used and abused as a participant.

“Louis!” Harry snapped. Louis looked up from the magazine he had been flicking through and barely reading.

“Yes, dear?”

“Were you even listening to me?”

Louis pretended to think about this for a moment, and Harry visibly battled with himself to keep a smile off of his dimpled face.

“No, I don’t suppose that I was.”

“Well you should,” Harry said sharply, moving over to the kitchen (which was really part of the living room. They only had three rooms – bedroom, bathroom and everything else room). “This affects you just as much as me.”

“Harry, honey,” Louis groaned, leaning his head back against the sofa. “I’ve spent the past three days going with you to look for complementary towels. _Towels._ Does it matter what colour towels are? No. They’ll still dry my balls the same either way.”

“That’s not the point, Lou,” Harry said, now seemingly less frustrated but still vaguely irritated. Louis resisted the urge to kiss away the faint crease in between his eyebrows, but it was difficult. “And we should’ve gotten up earlier, too. You have to get into work...”

“Maybe you should’ve gotten up later,” Louis suggested, biting on the lollipop that had came with the complementary magazine. “Made you less stressed, darling.”

Harry opened his mouth to protest – nothing but mumbled splutters of dissent coming out – but was cut off by the jaunty new ringtone of Louis’ crap Nokia (he had slightly maybe possibly sat on his iPhone and broke it so royally that it was cheaper to buy a whole new phone than to get it fixed, and he didn’t have enough money to buy a whole new phone).

“Hold on a second,” Louis said, smirking. Harry was smiling now too, because no matter how pissed off they were at each other, domestic spats also filled them with a sense of ‘holy shit this is real we’re together and we’re living here _together_ we’re probably gonna get married someday and have kids holy shit i love you’. “Hello?”

“Tommo!” Zayn exclaimed through the phone, with slightly uncharacteristic chirpiness that Louis was filled with a sense of unease.

“Malik... o?” Louis replied. He pulled the phone away from his ear and said to Harry, “It’s Zayn.”

“Yeah, no shit, precious,” Harry snorted.

Zayn’s voice echoed out of the phone. “Tommo, you there?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, I was just talking to Harry. What’s up?”

“Harry’s there?”

“My boyfriend Harry, who lives with me, is here with me, yes.”

“Put me on loudspeaker.”

“This is awkward.”

He could hear Zayn’s sigh through the phone, even though it was clear he had covered the speaker.

“Why, Louis?” Zayn asked.

“I kind of sat on my phone,” Louis explained, whilst Harry tried to suppress laughter. “Now I’ve got a Nokia – like one of those proper brick ones, you know the ones – and yeah. I don’t think it has loudspeaker, and I’m not really willing to check.”

“Should I phone Harry, then?”

“Probably not. We can’t really find it after last night.”

“What ha... I don’t want to know. Just let him hear, alright?”

Louis nodded, then, realising that he was on the phone, said, “Yeah, sure. Two minutes.”

He motioned for Harry to come closer to him, and after a few awkward movements they figured out that Louis sitting on Harry’s lap and holding the phone between their ears was the best way of hearing, as well as the most entertaining position for him, because Harry was wearing his shirts buttoned really low down nowadays and he could see the ink sprawled across his chest.

“Hiiiiiiiii,” Harry said into the phone.

“Oops,” Louis said afterwards, smiling sweetly at Harry, just to confirm. He could practically feel Zayn rolling his eyes from a couple blocks away.

“You two are such nerds,” he said shortly. “But listen up.”

“We’re listening,” Harry said, although they weren’t, really. Louis’ mouth was already on Harry’s neck (it was just _there_ all unmarked and Louis didn’t like that).

“S.H.I.E.L.D found something in Germany.”

“Was it Germans?”

“Stop being snarky, Louis.”

“That was Harry.”

A brief pause followed, expressing his disbelief. “Are you two morphing into the same person or something? Because if you are, we could use another Avenger for this mission.”

“No thanks,” Louis replied, taking a brief break from kissing Harry, who was now red faced and wide eyed. “I’m not really the goody-goody type. I just marry into it.”

“Do you two want to hear about this or...”

“Yes, we do,” Harry said pointedly, raising an eyebrow at Louis. “Come on, Zayn, spit it out. We’re in the middle of something at the moment.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll try to make it quick.”

“So will I.”

“Louis!”

“Guys, I really _really_ don’t want to hear this right now.”

“Not like you’re a virgin, Zayn. By the way, where’s Perrie at?”

“None of your business, Louis, now will you just listen?”

“ _I’m_ listening.”

“Yeah well you’re also the gap-ass who trips over shoes _two hundred times in a row_.”

“They found the Winter Soldier!”

Louis and Harry both stopped laughing immediately. In fact, Louis pulled away from his boyfriend so quickly he left a completely accidental hickey on his neck. It bruised quickly and harshly, darkening to such a purple it was almost black. Harry rubbed at it and shot him a look, but Louis was too busy processing Zayn’s words to apologise with more than a pat on the arm.

“Did you just say... the Winter Soldier?” Louis asked. The reverence in his tone was more than plain. Zayn let out a murmur of agreement. “Why didn’t you start with that, then?”

“I literally give up with you two,” Zayn groaned, desperate.

Harry squinted his eyes at the phone, as if scrutinising it’s communication of the message.

“The Winter Soldier,” he repeated, disbelieving. “You’re not seriously telling me that the greatest assassin of the After War period is alive _today,_ are you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Zayn said solemnly. “Liam knew him.”

Louis widened his eyes. “He mentioned something about someone from back then, before,” Louis spluttered, looking at Harry who was watching him with even more reverence than was usual. “Back when we were fighting what’s-her-Rocks.”

“Adamina?” Zayn suggested.

“That’s the one,” Louis clicked his fingers. “He mentioned something about... ugh, train-lines...”

Harry raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Train-lines?” he questioned. Louis nodded.

“With you till the end of the line,” Zayn muttered. Louis agreed hurriedly. “Yeah,” the dark haired boy hummed. “I’ve been saying that a lot today. It’s the part that’s been passed down in history as part of Liam’s story – it’s kind of heartbreaking, when you think about it.”

“Liam...” Harry murmured. “What does Liam have to do with any of this?”

And there was the epiphany, the sudden realization that Louis had grown accustomed to receiving over the past twenty odd years.

“The Winter Soldier is Bucky, isn’t he.”

He wasn’t questioning it, because he already knew, and Zayn also knew that.

“Are you coming along with us then?” Zayn asked instead, after a brief pause. “To find the Winter Soldier?”

“Of course,” Harry answered, almost immediately. He didn’t need to check with Louis first – they were both the same mind about things like this anyways. All that Louis was thinking about anyways was how he would tell Liam about this.

He would ultimately be the one to do it, for the other boys were too scared of hurting him and thus, Liam hurting them. Louis wasn’t afraid of him. Louis wasn’t even particularly afraid of hurting him.

The meaningless words that Zayn and Harry exchanged in goodbyes blurred into nothingness in his mind, until finally, the Nokia clicked off, and he and Harry were sitting in the middle of their empty apartment, surrounded by nothing but silence.

Louis let out a long, drawn out groan and flopped against Harry’s chest, using Harry’s shirt to drown out his scream.

“How the fuck am I gonna tell him,” he shouted into Harry’s chest, whilst the other boy just stroked his hair, the complementary cushions or towels or whatever the fuck it was long forgotten about.

“I don’t know, baby,” Harry answered sadly. “I really don’t know.”

*

After Louis informed Liam of the mission, the Avengers gathered together in Zayn’s office to discuss their game plan. As was becoming routine for them, they agreed on nothing.

Liam – usually the ever-present and unwavering tactician – remained silent the entirety of the time, picking at his fingernail. Harry suggested a full-on confrontation, which would ultimately end with him overpowering the Soldier and taking him into custody. Zayn and Perrie thought that they should be a bit sneakier about the whole endeavour. Niall just didn’t want to go, plain and simple, especially when he heard about the Soldier’s infinite list of ‘successes’. Eventually, they came to the decision that there was no possible conclusion that could end _worse_ than all the rest of them, and they settled that they’d make it up as they went along.

The five boys, Eleanor and Perrie opted to take Malik’s private jet rather than fly alongside the public in a flight to Germany. This served only to elevate the tension that caused Louis’ mouth to remain dry and somewhat slack, as the single-most topic that seemed to be hanging in the air was that of the Winter Soldier. Chatter emanated from the girls, who were discussing with vigour the various techniques he used to murder those who challenged him before, and Zayn and Niall were conversing lowly about the dangers, and what to do if someone should fall behind. Louis had decided beforehand that he, single-handedly, would not mention the name ‘Bucky’ at all the entire plane ride they had boarded that evening, and thankfully, the others followed this lead, mentioning only the stranger’s moniker and not his previous nickname.

Nobody even asked Liam how he knew him, though, which was just as well, because he didn’t mention the fact that he knew him at all, and he carried on with this charade for all that he was worth. He even went so far as to read through the case file as if he had no prior knowledge of this enemy beforehand.

Louis had told him in slightly vague terms, perhaps, that there was a slim chance the Winter Soldier may have been his childhood best friend, wartime partner and all time companion James Buchanan Barnes, stretching the truth in a slim way that only Louis could. However, he got the distinct impression that the other boy knew of this instinctively the moment he told him of the mission – he got that sad sort of look in his eye, as if he had been expecting something like this to happen, which just made Louis get a sad sort of look that no matter how many times Harry kissed him couldn’t be erased.

He watched Liam over the table as he sipped on what must’ve been his third glass of wine. It had been an hour, so there was approximately six hours and forty three minutes left of this pure and utter torture. Louis thought that he had left clock-watching behind when he exited the school building for the last time, but now he was of the firm opinion that being stared down by a semi-depressed Liam was still better than sessions with the perky school counsellor any day.

“Are you going to buy anything in Frankfurt before we go?” Harry asked. He was curled up in his seat beside Louis, wrapped in the other boy’s coat. Even though it didn’t fit him, Harry was in love with it – he said it smelt like home. Louis felt like pointing out to Harry that polite chit-chat was pretty much pointless at this stage, but was pleasantly surprised by Liam forcing a small smile and shaking his head.

“Don’t think so,” he said. “Germany isn’t really a shopping destination for me.”

“Ah,” Harry said simply, leaning his head back against the comfy leather chair. “Brings back bad memories?”

Liam pursed his lips. “Something like that, yeah.”

Eleanor appeared with four cups of coffee balanced perfectly on her arms. She set them down in front of each boy, rhyming off the concoction she had created specifically for each of them, and then sat down beside Liam with a loud sigh, as if it had been truly taxing for her to spend the past hour googling Starbucks recipes using the plane’s free Wi-Fi. Niall arrived – predictably – moments later, and where Niall went the rest followed, meaning that the entirety of the group was squished up into seats meant for four people, only a few standing like sensible human beings.

“So I googled fun things to do on a plane ride,” Niall announced, sticking his phone up in the air to demonstrate, which was just as well, because he was barely visible under Zayn, Liam and Eleanor. “And I think number 54 is the best.”

Harry squinted at the list, either because he could barely see or because he was in pain from where Louis was basically pinning him to the wall (it was either move closer to Perrie, who had a lot of really impressive guns, or closer to Harry, who also had a deadly weapon in his carry-on but was substantially less hostile. It wasn’t a tough decision).

“You are not going to whip out your kazoo and give the pilots a special entertainment show, Niall,” Harry said, whilst the others groaned. Eleanor was the only one smiling, which proved what Louis had always considered to be the truth – love made people dumb as hell.

“Why don’t we just behave like normal human beings and spend the next six hours on our phones ignoring each other?” Zayn suggested, poking out from behind Eleanor and her substantially large hair (she’d got Louis to curl it before they came, and Louis never professed to be a hair stylist).

“I don’t even know how to work your phones,” Liam said pathetically, prompting an eye roll from Louis.

“Not that hard,” Louis said. “You literally tell it what to do and get annoyed when it doesn’t hear you properly. Or even worse when it phones ‘Dad’ instead of ‘Daddy’.”

Liam looked even more confused, if this was possible, whilst Niall just buried his head into Perrie’s shoulder and screamed. Eleanor was bright purple, Perrie looked vaguely amused, Harry turned on and Zayn was left to the awkward situation of explaining it to Liam, who, once he understood the terminology, left the cabin and spent the next half hour sitting with the pilots.

After that, there was still another five hours, thirty three minutes, and Louis resorted to reading a TV magazine that detailed a show cancelled in 2006.

This wasn’t really how the movies showed super-heroes.

*

Frankfurt was different to how Louis had imagined Germany. For some reason, once he heard the name in his head, he thought of Oktoberfest (that was Germany, right?) or beer, and not much else. Now, he was slightly blown away by the magnitude of the buildings there; the different shapes and textures of the designs and the architecture that looked as if it had taken years to design and even longer to bring to life.

The moment they stepped off the plane they were greeted by a short, waving man by the name of Fredrickson. He wasn’t what you would’ve expected of a S.H.I.E.L.D agent; he had the typical stature of a small teenage girl, and there was a bald patch on his head from where he rubbed at it when he was nervous. Even standing in front of the group he was shaking and wringing his hands together, wiping the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief.

“Mr. Malik,” he announced squeakily, at a decibel that only dogs could hear. “I’m so glad you got here so quickly... Thank you for your promptness, I told Mr. Richter you would be right with him, and now you will be... He’s waiting up at the Headquarters, he’ll help you suit up and get on your way...”

Fredrickson spoke in such a way, as if every sentence ended with an ellipsis, that Louis found it quite hard to look at him without raising his eyebrow. When he did, though, Eleanor nudged him hard in the ribs. He was pretty sure he’d have bruises _not_ left by Harry in the morning.

“Is that where we’re staying tonight, then?” Niall asked. Zayn was in the front seat of the long, black vehicle (bulletproof glass, Louis recognised) along with Fredrickson and Perrie, whilst the other five were scrunched into the back. It was a good thing they were close and all, because this was an inordinate lack of personal space by anybody’s standards. “With this Richter fellow?”

“Indeed, Mr. Horan,” Fredrickson said, swivelling around from the front seat. Perrie was driving, so he could focus on shaking all of their hands in turn. Niall looked significantly pleased at this title. He had probably never been called ‘Mr’ before by anyone other than his mother when she scolded him.

“He’s ensured you have a safe place to rest for the night before your search begins tomorrow. And can I just say what an honour it is to meet you, Mr. Payne, or can I call you Captain America?”

Liam was the only one who hadn’t advanced forward when Fredrickson addressed the group. He was sitting, staring out of the window, only replying when Louis poked him in one of his overly large biceps, and even then, nothing was delivered but icy detachment to the squirming man in front of him.

“Cap’s fine,” Liam said sharply, with the kind of strength one would expect of a naval commander about to take down a rival fleet. “So is Liam, but surely Malik would’ve told you that beforehand. He’s told you everything else.”

He was, of course, referring to the knowledge that everybody in the car shared, that the very man they had been sent to investigate trained alongside Captain America for years. Not much was known about their relationship, but from the way that Liam was so uncharacteristically snarky to those of authority, Louis could tell that he obviously meant a great deal to him.

Or perhaps it was more than that, Louis thought, but he couldn’t possibly bring that up here – not in front of all of these people. No, these kind of confessions have to come out in the dead of night, when one person shows up at the other’s door and relies on the deliriousness 2am brings to give them the answers they seek. And that was just what Louis did.

That evening, he brushed his teeth with Harry – both of them pulling funny faces in the mirror to each other and trying to sing Madonna with mouthwash in their gobs – and settled into their crisp, white sheets, his chest pressed against Harry’s back, the younger boy curled up into the foetal position and grasping onto Louis’ hand for all that it was worth. Mjölnir lay on the bedside cabinet, shining as he dreamed.

Louis – who had only feigned sleep so that the other boy would too, Harry would stay up all night talking to him if he had the chance – slipped his hand out of the boy’s iron grip. A low murmur emanated from Harry’s lips, and Louis froze in the bed until he drifted back into the land of slumber. He sat up from the bed, making sure to tuck the covers in under Harry’s side so that there wouldn’t be a draft, and started the desperate search for his shoes.

Once he found them and pulled them on, he took a brief moment to admire the way that the moonlight streaming through the windows reflected off of Harry’s every inch; the outline of his mouth, the curve of his nose, the vein in his neck. The way that the covers clung to his skin, as if even they couldn’t bear to be away from his embrace for even a moment. Louis understood their sentiments.

He leaned over the bed, trying hopelessly to be silent, and pressed his lips carefully, the most gentle he had ever been, against Harry’s eyelids. The other boy’s lashes fluttered against his skin, causing little shadows, and he let out an incomprehensible whisper, heavy and laden with sleep.

“Iloveyou,” Louis muttered, stroking against Harry’s curls with his forefinger, admiring the rings upon his hand, the rings he had bought him for Valentine’s Day and the other boy’s birthday and every other celebration in between times. “Iloveyousodamnmuch.”

Harry wasn’t quite awake, but he wasn’t as asleep as Louis had previously thought. Just as the blue-eyed boy made his way to the door of the hotel room, there came a light murmur from the previously unmoving figure.

“NeverwanttoloseyouLou.”

Louis smiled, his hand resting upon the cold metal of the doorknob.

“You’re never going to, baby. Go back to sleep.”

When he left Harry’s sight, the corridor was dark and dismal, and Louis briefly considered why such a big-shot like this ‘Mr. Richter’ wouldn’t pay for them to stay in a more ventilated space; there was a thick cloud in the air that made Louis crave a cigarette more than ever. He briefly considered going to Zayn and begging for one, but after one look at his digital watch he realised that probably wouldn’t go down well, and J.A.R.V.I.S would ultimately be sent to beat him.

He padded along the carpet, counting the number of doors before finally ending up at the one six away from his room. He rapped at the door after only a second of hesitation, and waited, then knocked again, and waited.

The door creaked open, and a gun barrel poked around it.

“Please get that thing the fuck away from me,” Louis said, not caring how loud his voice was, or whether he would wake up the various agents positioned in the rooms surrounding them. Liam let out a groan.

“Louis, is that you?” he asked, taking the chain off the door and lowering the weapon. Louis rolled his eyes.

“Obviously it’s me, idiot,” he snapped. “Now let me in, it’s fucking Baltic out here.”

Liam obliged, stepping backwards to allow Louis to pass. The moment that he did, the overwhelming smell of wine and beer filtered through the breeze coming from an open window. There were bottles littering the floor and purple stains on the bed-sheets, which remained seemingly untouched. In fact, the only sign that Liam had made use of any of the luxury facilities was the lack of alcohol in the fridge; there was only a single bottle of vodka left.

Louis moved over and grabbed the spirit and gradually got to work making himself a cup of tea infused with the alcohol, realising that it was the only way he was going to survive a night of discussing feelings with Liam. Liam would’ve looked tired if he was a normal human, but instead, he just looked really, really, really sad.

“I can’t get drunk,” Liam muttered, settling himself onto the end of his bed, burying his face in his hands. His hair was slicked against his head from where he had run his fingers through it, and there were bruises on his arms, probably results of Liam punching against the bathroom wall. “I used to get drunk on one sip of wine. Bucky always used to make fun of me.”

Louis cautiously moved across the dimly lit room, settling down beside his acquaintance (if that’s what you could call them, he couldn’t think of a better term).

“Tell me about him,” Louis said simply, sipping on the tea. Liam raised his head for a moment and looked at Louis, as if contemplating whether he was making fun or not.

“Are you being serious?” Liam asked eventually. Louis nodded, pursing his lips at the strong taste of the liquor.

“Completely,” he said, once he had recovered. “This is really good tea. You want some?”

Liam shook his head. Louis shrugged. “Your loss.”

“Why are you here, Louis?” Liam questioned sharply, still looking at the other boy. His eyes were shining with something unprecedented and watery, something that Louis pretended not to notice.

“Because I’m only a terrible person half of the time,” Louis responded. “The other half I’m actually decent. Now, are you going to rant to me or are you just going to make the rest of this trip as miserable as the first bit has been?”

Liam considered this for a moment and then, realising that he had just spent the past couple of hours desperately trying to get wasted, decided that perhaps this was the best option after all. He sighed and flopped back against the bed, a motion that Louis soon copied, so they were both staring at the patterned ceiling.

“He was my best friend,” Liam muttered, figuring that this was a good place to start. Louis set his tea on the floor beside the bed, deciding that maybe it wasn’t a perfect plan for him to get drunk; from the sounds of it, he’d be the only clear minded one by the end of the night.

“I got that much, mate,” Louis said. “I mean the mor-“

“I loved him.”

Louis’ voice caught in his throat, threatening to choke him. Those three words had took him completely off guard, even though he had been telling himself he was expecting them; they struck a little too close for comfort.

“That’s all I did,” Liam said. His eyes were closed now, probably so that he wouldn’t cry. “I only loved him. I loved only him. But I didn’t tell him. Why didn’t I tell him?”

“You would’ve got lynched,” Louis stated frankly. He wasn’t one for mincing words. “I mean, I’m not quite sure how that kind of thing was dealt with back in your decade, but here, it’s not really taken very well.”

A sigh emanated from beside him.

“Nothing ever changes, does it, Tommo.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but Louis answered anyways.

“The world is a circle, mate,” Louis murmured. “And that’s what everything happens in, a circle. It just keeps going round and round and round and round, never ending. And for some reason, people loving each other just don’t fit in that circle.”

A pause. Then, when Liam spoke again, it was less with the heavy sadness he had been displaying before. It was more curiosity in his tone, or something resembling it.

“How did you know you were... you know.”

“Gay?”

“Yes.”

Louis thought back to the school days, the days when he would look at that boy in maths class and wonder what was wrong with him, why he liked this boy instead of all of the pretty girls in his school. He remembered becoming friends with that boy from maths class, and he remembered the other boys calling them mean names and pushing them together and trying to make them kiss, and then he remembered them _actually_ kissing, one night out at the play park, and he remembered that boy got really angry and told Louis never to talk to him again because he wasn’t some “dirty, filthy little faggot” no matter what had just transpired.

He decided that wasn’t the happiest of tales, so he censored it.

“I met a boy back in high school,” he began, “and I really liked him. Honestly, I did. I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread, to be honest. He was really nice, and he had these lovely brown eyes, and he played rugby and God. I really fucking liked him, you know? Anyway, I ended up kissing him at the park we hung out in most nights, and when I figured that I liked it, I just went with it. I went to a couple gay bars, dated a couple more guys and a couple more girls, trying to work it all out. To be honest, at the moment, I’m not even sure what exactly I am, apart from you know. Harry-sexual.”

“Can you be that?” Liam asked, and Louis was about to say that it was a joke, but the other boy cut in before he could provide a snarky response. “Can you just be attracted to one person? Because I really liked girls, I always did, but then Bucky... I loved him.”

Louis turned his head around to meet Liam’s eyes. “Sexuality isn’t a set thing, Cap,” he said. “You can love whoever the hell you want to, however the hell you want to. The only thing that matters is whether he loves you back.”

Liam pursed his lips together. “How would I know that, though?” he asked.

There was nothing in the world Louis hated more than this question. It was one that had haunted him for years in the comfort of his childhood home in Doncaster, and it was the one that followed him all the way to New York and even still occasionally crept into his thoughts late at night when Harry was pissed with him and he wondered if maybe he didn’t deserve him.

“When we find the Winter Soldier – if it _is_ him, of course – that’s when you’ll know, I suppose,” Louis said solemnly. “Until then, I guess you’ll never know, not really.”

The sound of the traffic rushing across the streets below the hotel echoed through the thin, single glazed windows as Liam pondered over this. He pushed himself up off the bed and reached over Louis to grab the teacup from the floor.

“I need this more than you, mate,” he said, when Louis raised an eyebrow.

The blue-eyed boy didn’t argue, for he knew that this was the truth.

*

“Well that was a big fat waste of fucking time,” Niall announced four days later on the plane ride back to New York. He was cradling a black eye, whilst Zayn was staring at his damaged suit with slight worry lacing his features. Eleanor and Perrie were trying to bandage Louis’ fingers which had been accidentally hit by Mjölnir and Harry was basically sobbing for the fifth goddamn time, apologising profusely for hurting Louis. Liam was staring out of the window, sporting a rather impressive looking bruise on the side of his head that was healing slower than usual.

“We didn’t even see his face,” Liam muttered, as the group murmured in agreement with Niall’s statement. “I couldn’t tell. All those years, and I couldn’t tell.”

“In all fairness, Cap,” Zayn said, wincing as a small electric shock burnt the tip of his finger. “He was very much trying to kill us at the same time. I wouldn’t have expected you to identify him, not in the slightest.”

“You saved my life,” Eleanor interjected with a whisper, leaning on the arm of Liam’s chair. She took him into a light hug despite his initial rejections of her advances. “Thank you.”

“It was no problem,” Liam said slowly, patting Eleanor’s arm in a noncommittal fashion. “Really, El, it’s my job. You can stop stroking my head now, it’s fine.”

“You saved my life,” she repeated, squeezing even tighter to Liam’s wide, bulky frame. Niall called out from across the plane, his accent never more noticeable than when he cried out in indignation.

“I saved your life too, if you remember! He was going to shoot you, and I saved you.”

“You pushed me over accidentally whilst trying to save yourself, Niall. That doesn’t fucking count.”

“I think we can all agree on something,” Perrie announced, before a domestic could break out and Harry could burst into tears once more. “We got our asses royally whipped.”

“Well thanks for pointing out the obvious, Edwards,” Liam snapped. “I would’ve been better, but I couldn’t really focus thinking that my best friend in the whole world might just be a brainwashed, murderous assassin.”

“That is unfortunate,” Perrie muttered, almost incoherently, but Louis had the distinct impression that she wasn’t as motivated by this as the rest of the team were; she seemed sort of cold and detached, as if emotional ties to another human were nothing more than a chain around an anchor, pulling her down, trapping her. “We’ll need to go back at some stage, of course. We’ll return to NYC, re-group, and try to come up with a concrete plan this time...”

“We should take him out where he’s weak,” Zayn pondered, clicking a couple metal plates together, only to be met with a lack of success. He set down his tools with a sound of disdain and stood up. He paced up and down the aisle as he thought, rubbing his chin in contemplation. “He’s very good at brunt force...”

“That was always Bucky’s strength,” Liam whispered to Louis, who was now admiring the bandages around his fingers and wondering whether they made him look any more like a badass. “But he was good at covert, too. Taught me everything he knew. It was a natural thing, you know... A talent. He was the best soldier I ever knew.”

“Apart from yourself, of course,” Louis prompted, but Liam didn’t respond. The conversation was clearly over.

“I have an idea,” Harry said after about ten minutes, still sniffling lightly, “if you want to hear it.”

“We’re all ears,” Zayn answered almost immediately, and Perrie nodded along with him. The entire group – bar Liam, but that was understandable – focused their attentions on Harry at this point, whose fingers reached out and brushed against Louis’ shirt. This small gesture gave him the confidence to continue.

“I think we should talk to someone who knows what they’re doing,” Harry said slowly, purposefully, thinking things through even more than he usually did before saying them. “Someone who knows the mind of an enemy... Someone who is aware of counter offences, our weaknesses, stuff like that. Someone who thinks of the Avengers as a threat, and almost got away with it.”

“Adamina,” Niall whispered breathlessly. Zayn looked over at Perrie, who was looking actually quite pleased, and then nodded.

“That sounds like a valid plan, actually,” he said, patting Harry on the shoulder. “Good job mate. I chose the right protégé.”

“We just need to choose someone to talk to her,” Eleanor said, scrunching her eyebrows together.

Suddenly, Louis felt every eye in the room fall on him. A long, drawn out sigh echoed from his beaten frame.

“I guess it’ll be me, then.”

*

Adamina glared at him through a curtain of sleek, shining hair, her green eyes burning with unrepressed fury. Her staff was on his side of the window, detained within a bulletproof case, and he could tell she was itching for it; her foot was tapping against the concrete floor hurriedly, hard enough that it could be heard from the other side of the booth.

“What are you here for, thunder boy’s lover?” she sneered through the phone line, her long nails vaguely reminiscent of a tiger’s. She still had thin scars from where the lightning had hit her months previous, and they pulsed with the same light glow that Mjölnir did, proof that it was Harry who had ultimately defeated her. Louis felt a surge of pride for his boy. “To mock and to gloat, perhaps?”

“No, nothing like that,” Louis reassured hurriedly, his eyes widening substantially. He remembered all too well the rapid chase through the warehouse, the repugnant breath of the creature on his back, the pounding of his heart as he fought to protect his friends. “I came to ask _you_ for something, if I’m being honest.”

Adamina let out a loud, cackling laugh, which was quite disconcerting for a woman who looked so innocent on the outside, despite the scars. “You dare to ask me for help?” she repeated, astonished, once she realised that he wasn’t joking with her. Louis pretended to think about it for a moment, and then nodded.

“I do dare,” Louis said slowly. “I dare very much, actually.”

“I’m sure there are others you could think of to manipulate, Mr. Styles,” she said, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Tomlinson,” Louis corrected, although he felt a fluttering in his stomach at her mistake. “My name is Tomlinson, not Styles.”

“Ah,” she said. “My mistake. I assumed, from the way he spoke of you, that he would make you his husband as soon as possible. I suppose he made the right decision not to, though.”

Something snapped inside of him.

“Listen here, you bitch,” Louis snapped, ignoring the agents behind him who were signalling in their reflections for him to cut it out. “Don’t you dare say a thing about my fucking boyfriend, all right? At least I’m not stuck in a six by six box for the rest of my conceivable life. At least I’ve made better choices than you.”

“I didn’t mean to do all of those things,” Adamina refuted immediately, and it may have been more touching had she not spat it like an insult at Louis’ expense. “When I found that staff in Pompeii, I didn’t know what it would do. I didn’t know anything other than it felt like it belonged... to me.”

“It does, in a way,” Louis said, simmering down slightly now that the fire in her eyes was dimming. “It only works for you. Malik couldn’t find a way to extract its power.”

“That’s because I’m still alive,” Adamina explained in a sickeningly sweet voice. “No thanks to Thor.”

“If you’re trying to tell me your villain back-story, just get around to it, okay? I don’t really have all day.”

Adamina let out a groan. “Fine,” she conceded. “I got the staff, and I started looking into things about it. I started investigating my family’s past, and I found out that my great grandmother was something like me – she caused so many disasters without meaning to, and she was a good lady.”

“Wait a minute,” Louis said, grabbing onto the phone more tightly, as if it had picked her up wrong. “Without meaning to?”

“When I get angry,” Adamina mumbled, barely comprehensible, “bad things happen.”

“What, like the Hulk?”

“Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes... Anytime I didn’t get what I wanted and I was annoyed, I read about all those deaths the next day in the paper.”

“And you wanted the Tesseract,” Louis said finally. She nodded.

“Exactly,” she said, pursing her lips. “I wanted to see if it would... if it would give me the power to make up for things.”

Much to Louis’ shock, a silent tear fell down her cheek, taking the track created by the scars.

“I’m responsible for so many deaths,” she muttered. “If I can create creatures, from the dirt... Maybe the Tesseract could bring back the people who I’ve killed. I thought it was worth a shot. I thought maybe I could make everything right again and repent. I thought...”

Louis leaned closer to the glass, pressing his hand up against it. He pointed to his palm, and Adamina hesitantly raised her own up to it. Her hands were small, disproportionate to the power that ran through them.

“You have a chance now, if you want it,” Louis suggested, swallowing thickly.  Adamina sniffled a few times, desperately trying to recover herself, but Louis knew this might be the only time he would have at a moment of weakness. This was the only time he might be able to convince her. He couldn’t look away.

“If you want it,” he repeated, slowly, cautiously, as if she was some kind of wild animal. “You have a chance.”

“What would I have to do?” she asked, rubbing her nose against the orange jumpsuit. This was the cue for the agent to step forward and pass Louis a briefcase, which he opened to reveal the case files.

“The Winter Soldier?” she exclaimed after having read the notes. Her voice was ringing through the phone line, slightly delirious. “You’re expecting me to kill the Winter Soldier?”

“Not kill,” Louis corrected hurriedly. “We know someone who wants him back alive. If you agree to help, that is my only condition. That, and you don’t become a double agent, of course.”

Adamina scrutinised the various pages Louis pressed up against the glass, resting the phone in between her ear and shoulder.

“I’ve met him before,” she said eventually, probably figuring that she couldn’t make her situation any worse than being in jail for life. “Back in Germany, a couple years ago. Do you know how he was created?”

“He was captured,” Louis said. “By enemy forces during the war, and brought back to Germany where he was made into a super soldier. The second of his type.”

“Captain America,” she murmured. “Is Captain America the one you seek to reunite with him?”

Louis bit his lip. “I don’t think I’m obligated to give you that information.”

“Fair enough,” she conceded. “What else do you know?”

“He was frozen and his records were hidden under layers of the ground. They were only rediscovered by a group called HYDRA a couple years ago, and they set to work of bringing the Winter Soldier back and training him as an assassin.”

“Is that all you know?” she asked.

“That’s all I know,” he confirmed.

“You know nothing about his training?” she asked.

“What do _you_ know about his training?” Louis questioned, shoving the papers back into the briefcase, not caring in what order they went. He leaned forward on his fingers like all of those detectives in the old black and white movies did, feeling quite empowered by his interrogation skills. Maybe he should’ve gone into investigative work rather than the field of science.

Adamina glanced around for a few seconds, as if contemplating whether she should tell or not, and Louis tapped on his invisible watch.

“Fine, fine,” she snapped. “I’ll tell you. But don’t inform that Captain friend of yours about it, okay? He’ll probably get really angry, and I don’t think either of us would like that, now would we, Mr. Tomlinson?”

“Who said he was anything to do with this?”

“I’m not stupid,” she said, looking at him like he was prey. “I know a liar when I see one. The _earth_ knows a liar when one stands upon it. And you, my friend, are the biggest liar I’ve ever met. You even lie to yourself.”

A muscle in Louis’ jaw tensed.

“We’re not here to talk about me,” he warned dangerously. “Now just spit it out, Kun. I don’t have all fucking day. If you want out of this hell-hole, you’ll tell me all you know. If you don’t, I might be forced to bring Black Widow in on you. And you don’t want that, do you?”

It was amazing how, after that, Adamina freely revealed all of the information Louis needed to know at such a rapid rate the agents behind him had a hard time keeping up with writing it all down.

He knew now that the Winter Soldier, whoever he might be, was being controlled through use of illegal torture methods mainly concentrated on the brain, so that any inch of what he had been before had vanished. HYDRA had gone to extreme extents to prevent him from being exposed to anything that would trigger memories, for if one broke through, their entire defences may be destroyed, and the Soldier knew so much it would be easy for him to single-handedly bring down the organisation. Louis now knew the times, dates, places where the Soldier would be and his most common combat tactics. Yet, when he asked Adamina how she knew all of this, she just tapped the side of her nose and said:

“Now, Tomlinson. Would this be any fun if I told you _everything_?”

*

“I still don’t trust her,” Liam said, crossing his arms against his chest. “I just want that put on record now for when she fucks off on us in an hour or two.”

Louis let out a sigh, plucking on the bow in his hand, twiddling the arrows in the bag hanging against his back. Perrie had been training him for a while now – ever since the first ‘complication’ - in the art of archery, and it seemed that his natural athletic ability shone through his aim; she had devolved on him a S.H.I.E.L.D badge and a fond nickname, ‘Hawkeye’.

“She’s not as bad as you think,” he said, biting on the edge of his lip, watching as Niall brushed some lint off Harry’s cape. “Really. She regrets a lot of things, Liam. I think this might be her chance to make up for them.”

“Villains never change, Tomlinson,” Liam snapped, sliding his shield down over his navel. “You’d be best to remember that.”

Louis bit so harshly on his lip then that it bled. “So would you,” he muttered, but Liam either didn’t hear or pretended not to, which was probably for the best.

The air was whipping through their hair, making Harry’s cape float through the breeze and nearly toppling Eleanor and Niall over, who were already tapping away on some pretty expensive looking equipment. The group were standing in the middle of a deserted intersection, hoping that the civilians would heed their warning and stay inside for the next couple of days, although only time would tell. Humans had a tendency to disobey even the most practical of recommendations.

Orange light from the rising sun shone through the buildings, basking Louis’ exposed skin with warmth. Harry had remarked on the fact that a light tan covered the blue-eyed boy’s skin now. This was perhaps the first time in his relatively short life that such a thing had happened.

Zayn coughed once loudly and moved over to a nearby park bench, levitating himself on top of it so that he could address all of them with ease. His mask was down and his hands were clasped in fists, the signal to J.A.R.V.I.S to keep Adamina’s cuffs closed until the battle began. She was standing nearby him in a skin tight, forest green suit, small branches growing out from the sidewalk, making their way towards her. The staff remained in Harry’s grasp, along with Mjölnir, because he was the only Avenger she wouldn’t dare to go near.

“I have an announcement I would like to make before the fun starts,” Zayn said, in a confident tone, his voice slightly echoing inside his suit. Perrie remained quietly curious, Eleanor looked as if she knew something no one else did, Liam was staring at the sky, Harry was staring at Louis and Louis had no fucking idea what was going on but had the sneaking suspicion that he really should’ve.

“Eleanor and I had a chat last night on Skype, and we came up with a plan,” Zayn explained, which just made Louis even more baffled, considering he didn’t even know the two talked outside of S.H.I.E.L.D and assassins. “I understand that life has been difficult and strenuous for all of us so far. Believe me, I haven’t got laid in so long I think I’ve dried up. No offence, honey.”

“None taken, sweetheart,” she said sarcastically, only cracking a smile when Zayn blinked one of the lights in the suit’s eyes, as if he was winking.

Zayn continued with his impressive monologue. “But whilst saving the good people of New York City - and, indeed, the world - may be important, some things are much more important, much more monumental, with much more need for urgent address.

“So that is why I am saying – no, suggesting – something that is so utterly unprecedented for someone of my character. This is why I am trying to be romantic and spontaneous, something that will ultimately go straight over the head of my utterly fantastic partner.

“Perrie Edwards,” Zayn said, inhaling sharply. Perrie had been pushed to the front of the group now against her will, and was staring up at Zayn with a mixture of embarrassment and pleading, two emotions that the iron-clad man refused to see. “I’m going to ask this only once, and I’d prefer it if you gave me an answer promptly before we all get blown to smithereens.”

It clicked in Louis’ brain, and he immediately went to his back pocket to check if he had put in his cigarettes. He had.

“Will you marry me?”  Zayn asked finally, piercingly, his voice slightly strained. Perrie’s hand went up to her mouth in shock, and she let out a slight gasp.

“What?” she questioned, looking as confused as Louis had felt previously, her blue eyes wide and awestruck.

“Will you marry me?” Zayn repeated. His shoulders were somewhat deflated now – Louis was of the distinct impression that the dark haired boy was disappointed this wasn’t going as smoothly as he had planned it to.

“What, like _now_?” Perrie inquired. Zayn nodded, and, as if on cue, a pink faced minister appeared from behind him clasping a Bible against his chest.

“I know you’re not really religious, precious,” Zayn murmured. “But this was the only guy who would, you know... Come onto the battlefield with us.”

“I can’t tell if I should be pleased,” Perrie began. “Or pissed off.”

She turned around to Eleanor.

“And I can’t believe _you_ were in on this!”

Eleanor wasn’t much help in calming her; she just giggled pathetically and grasped onto Louis’ arm unnecessarily.

“I thought it was cute,” she said. “Live while you’re young and all that.”

“You might need to make your decision fast,” Niall cut in, squinting closely at the tablet device balanced on his fingers. He too was wearing armour, although it was bulky and made for protection rather than agility as Louis’ was. He had been told that if anyone came near him, he needed to run, and for once this was an instruction Niall had no problem following to a tee. “Seems like he’s found us.”

“How long do we have before impact?” Harry asked immediately. He put his arm around Eleanor protectively. She was the only one of them completely vulnerable; she had argued that she bested Adamina in nothing but too big shoes and boyfriend jeans, so why couldn’t she do the same now? (Louis managed to convince Zayn that whenever Eleanor decided on something, they were best leaving it..)

“A few minutes, at most,” Niall said, and as Louis leaned over his shoulder, he realised that it was true. The little red dot that symbolised the Soldier was moving rapidly through the streets, jumping across roofs of buildings. He would be upon them within seconds, and he apparently didn’t think them to be much of a threat; he was alone, or at least seemed to be.

Zayn reached his hand out for Perrie’s, and without a second of hesitation, she took it, smiling as her fingers curled around the metal glove. Adamina’s bonds opened suddenly and clashed to the ground, and Harry passed the staff over slowly.

“If we survive this,” Perrie said slowly. She was grinning wildly, her blonde hair falling down in ringlets against her forehead. “I’ll do it, and I’ll do so happily.”

It would’ve been a nice moment filled with nothing but a small ‘aw’ from Eleanor had it not have been for  the large thump behind them, followed by powerful steps crossing the gravel, coming closer with each passing moment. The cracking of steel knuckles and the raspy breathing emanating from behind a terrorist mask clouded Louis’ thoughts, made Liam raise his shield and gun together in turn and made Zayn prepare the rockets in his suit for maximum impact.

He was here, and whilst the minister had dropped his Bible and made for the hills, Louis knew there was no turning back now.

He raised his bow, and aimed.

*

Louis shuffled on his feet, placing them shoulder width apart, closed his left eye and focused on the sound of his breaths puffing out against the wind rather than the crying of civilians and the burning of the cars only a few streets away. He was the only Avenger left now, apart from Zayn; the rest were off pulling people from under large sheets of metal, shoving them into ambulances, explaining to the police force which bridges to cut off.

Zayn was shooting fireballs at the Soldier, letting out a string of profanities each and every time he missed the assassin, who was weaving in and out of the roofs with surprising ease. Louis watched his movements, fluid like a raging typhoon, and didn’t bother calling out to Zayn when yet another petrol bomb was thrown at the flying suit; Iron Man was far too experienced to let something like that destroy him, and he continued his pursuit of the Soldier, all be it a little more slowly, and with a bucket-load less confidence.

“Come on, Louis,” he mumbled to himself, biting on his already chapped lips, savouring the light taste of Harry from the night before. When he thought of the other boy, everywhere Harry had touched lit on fire – the curve of his hips were burning, the stretch of his thighs ignited, almost every inch of him aflame with a newfound determination.

He let out one final breath, and let go of the arrow.

It sailed through the air almost silently, cutting through with the utmost precision. The metal wings on the side that Malik had developed moved upwards with the wind, Louis’ eyes trained on the one piece of help he could provide for the team, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

The arrow was mere centimetres away from the Soldier, and he’d hit him right in the back if he moved how Louis was expecting him to; it was poison as well, not lethal enough to kill him, just enough to apprehend him and carry out an interrogation...

Louis waited, with bated breath, as the man who had already caused so much destruction whipped his head around and grabbed the flying arrow in between his forefinger and thumb.

He snapped it without a second thought, and dropped it down onto the pavement below, as if it was nothing more than a wasp that had been somewhat irritating throughout the day.

Louis’ shoulders drooped in defeat as he watched Zayn’s gaze turn from the enemy to where Louis stood, concealed only half by the wall of a building, and gave him a thumbs up, even though that wasn’t what he deserved at all. Louis pressed against his earpiece, wincing slightly at the many small cuts against his cheek where the arrow had sliced the skin.

“Captain, come in Captain,” he muttered into the radio, flopping back against the wall. His bow clattered down beside him. Static filled the line.

“Hawkeye?” Liam’s voice broke through. “Is that you? Hawkeye?”

“Yeah, Cap, it’s me,” Louis groaned. “Have you got close enough yet? Do you know...”

“It’s him,” Liam cut through suddenly. There were audible bangs in the background from both sides, and Louis could tell that whilst Zayn was trying to make things better he was really just making a spectacular job of destroying a bunch of shit people actually needed. “I know it’s him, Louis.”

“Are you sure?” Louis asked, feeling that sinking in his chest he hated so vehemently, the same sinking that meant he’d just been dumped pathetically over the phone or that the boy he’d loved for four years called him a name he would’ve preferred never to have been invented.

“I’m positive,” Liam answered. There was a brief pause. “He used the move we used to do together. When we went to the movies... I used to make comments on the fight methods they used, and he did the same. We came up with so many combat styles, and that was one of them. The one he just used to...”

“Blow up cars?” Louis suggested. “Destroy livelihoods? Kill people, Liam, because there’s bound to be dead now and we’re pretty much powerless to stop this?”

No reply, although he could tell by the clicking in his ear that the rest of the team had tuned into the same frequency, and were hearing his outburst.

“You said all that heroes needed to be were humans who cared,” Louis said, rubbing the blood off his face with the black of his sleeve. “But I’m a human, Zayn, and I care, and I’m not doing a damn bit of difference. We’re getting beat down to hell. People are dying. I want out, guys. I want out. I’m done.”

“We can’t give up now, Louis!” Niall exclaimed through the receiver, nearly piercing Louis’ brain with the volume of his voice. “This is the only chance I’ve ever had to do something amazing.”

“We did something amazing only a while ago, Niall,” Louis said. “Maybe that’s all anyone’s expected to do. One good thing, and then disappear.”

Adamina’s silky smooth voice leaked through the line, slightly surprising Louis, for she had been mostly radio silent the duration of the mission. The last he heard, she’d saved Harry from falling down a building by sending him Mjölnir on a vine and stopped Zayn shooting Liam using a particularly impressive sand creature.

“This isn’t the team who got me in cuffs,” she said simply. Her voice sounded so clear that Louis looked around to see if she was standing there - when he returned to staring forwards, she appeared, her staff glowing with the light of Malik’s makeshift Tesseract, her suit slightly ripped up but her eyes invigorated with something that hadn’t been there before.

“Maybe they don’t exist anymore,” Liam said. He appeared along with Malik, who was also carrying Eleanor, and Harry, who was carrying Niall and Perrie. They were all standing on the roof now, looking at each other, each trying to decide who to place the blame onto. Harry reached his hand out to Louis and helped him up from the ground, briefly running his soft fingers over the small cuts on his boyfriend’s cheek. He pressed a chaste kiss to each one of them.

“Of course they do!” Niall announced indignantly, stomping his foot on the ground for extra emphasis. “You guys are the ones I’ve read about my entire life! You’re the people I bought comics for, and wasted my pay check on to go and see in the cinema, and spent my childhood looking for in the sky. You’re the reason I wanted to come to New York, just so that there’d be the slightest chance of meeting you.”

He paused for a moment and swallowed thickly, his blue eyes watery and filled with emotion.

“I love you guys,” he said heavily, gabbing onto Eleanor’s hand and then Louis’ in turn. “And I know that we can all band together and do this because goddamnit we _need_ to. How many times have we spent in the movie theatres screaming at the fictional characters for arguing when they could be out there kicking ass? Now we’re doing the exact same thing.”

The blond haired boy glanced around at his friends with impassioned features, begging them to reconsider every ounce of irritation they had felt towards each other and themselves in the past couple of hours. For a brief moment, Louis thought that he could do exactly that.

(Then Harry had to go and ruin it, although he didn’t know that yet.)

“I have an idea,” Harry began slowly. Eleanor grinned, throwing her arms around his waist and gripping on tightly.

“I knew I could count on you, babe,” Louis said, shooting his lover a weak smile. Harry mirrored his expression, albeit with even more wavers in his facade.

“Liam,” Harry said sharply, turning around to the patriotic fellow. “You take Madison Avenue. Make sure there’s no one left there, call in the fire brigade to stop the fire. If they don’t come, deal with it yourself.”

Liam nodded, and, even though he wasn’t wearing a parachute, jumped off the building. Louis didn’t want to look over the side to see if he had made it.

“Zayn,” Harry said once he had turned to his teacher. “You take Eleanor and Niall and get them to a safe place. Go to Central Park, maybe, make sure the majority of any stragglers are kept there; I’ll try and keep the Soldier away. Adamina, you help.”

Zayn disappeared, Eleanor and Niall hanging onto his arms desperately. Adamina followed as swiftly as a coursing river, her knuckles white around her staff.

“Perrie,” Harry said slowly. “You cover 5th and 6th Avenue. There’s a few overturned cars there and I think some old HYDRA supporters came out of the woodwork and are there waiting for us; you’re the secrecy, so go knock them out before they know you’re there.”

Perrie nodded curtly, and scaled the building on a grappling hook which disappeared from view after a few moments.

“What about me?” Louis asked, somewhat shyly, looking up at Harry through hair which had fallen down into his eyes. Harry wasn’t smiling, but there was something pulling at the corners of his mouth; he moved across the roof and took Louis by the upper arms, Mjölnir hitting lightly against the lower of Louis’ back.

“Iloveyou,” Harry mumbled, kissing in between Louis’ eyebrows. Louis pressed himself closer to his boyfriend, getting high off his smell, his touch, his everlasting embrace; the way that his fingerprints branded him _his_ and his only. He would only ever be Harry’s, really; nobody else would come even close in his mind.

“I love you too, Hazza,” he said slowly, pressing his lips against the part of Harry’s jaw that he always loved marking, nibbling lightly on it so a previous bruise returned, all purple and beautiful, pulsing against his skin, spelling out L-O-V-E. “How did we end up here?”

Harry let out a low, deep laugh, a kind of laugh that reverberated right through him. It sounded as though it hurt.

“Fuck knows, kid,” he said, and Louis couldn’t see his face now, for it was buried into the smaller boy’s shoulder. “All I wanted to do was date the hot scientist guy I met at Comic Con.”

“All I did was fall for the beautiful Starbucks guy I met in a greasy New York chippy with questionable safety standards.”

“If I recall correctly, you called me a wonder.”

“That was even before you got all that hammer stuff going on, too,” Louis said solemnly. “That’s true love, there, babe.”

“So you still think I’m a wonder, then?” Harry asked, his lips tickling Louis’ earlobe.

“It depends,” Louis said. “Do you still think I’d make a good stripper?”

“Oh baby,” Harry said, looking up from his shoulder. His hair was stuck to his forehead, and the sun was shining on the side of his face with such reverence, as if even God was admiring this being he had created, lamenting on the beauty of his soul and his every goddamn cell and God, Louis loved him, he loved him far too deeply to allow him to go through with any of this. “I _know_ you’d make a good stripper.”

“But you’ll still not stay with me, will you,” Louis asked, resting a hand against Harry’s chest, pretending like the cold of the suit didn’t infiltrate his pores. He would rather imagine the warmth of Harry’s naked skin after a hot shower, anyways. “You’ll still go and fight for the ‘greater good’ and leave me all alone.”

“Louis...”

“Say you’ll never leave me.”

“Louis.”

“Goddamnit Harry,” Louis snapped, stepping backwards. “Why won’t you say it? Why won’t you just spit it out and promise you’ll be here forever and you won’t go away and lea-“

He was cut off by Harry’s lips crashing against his own. It was an explosion of heat and energy. Before he knew quite what was happening, their hands were in each other’s hair and they were both up against the chimney of the building, Mjölnir dropped to the floor a long way away and their breaths coming out in little pants and groans.

He never wanted it to end – he never wanted anything to end when it came to Harry, to be honest, because everything came alive and everything quietened down within him at the same time when he was near him. Harry was the electric charge he needed to heighten every sense, to make every colour more vivid and alive and make his shots hit the bulls eye first time and make this whole fucking Avengers thing worth it, because Harry was the only reason he was doing it, really –Harry was the only reason he was doing anything with vigour lacing his syllables and happiness in his veins.

Harry pulled away, and when Louis whimpered for more, he pressed his finger against the other boy’s lips.

“I’m going to bring you back down to the ground now, okay baby?” he asked. Louis nodded, not really seeing any other option.

“I don’t really know how I got up here, to be honest,” Louis mumbled, his words slightly muffled by Harry’s finger in front of his mouth, but he was liking this too much to push him away. Harry smiled once, somewhat sadly, and Mjölnir returned to his hand.

Lightning struck the air around them, lighting up the sky with blue and black and white, like a pulsing heart straining against the confines of a rib cage or a prisoner desperate to leave their cell. They both whisked into the air, the breeze rippling against their clothes and the bow, making Louis lose a couple arrows on the way but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered, because he was flying and this was all he had ever wanted and he was gripping onto Harry for a reason other than love right now and that was okay too.

When they settled on the gravel, surrounded by nothing but fires and sirens and policemen running around waving red flags and asking whether that was Thor or not and who was the boy with him, Harry turned to Louis one last time and said, “Remember that kiss.”

Louis blinked a few times, slightly confused, and was about to ask why Harry would say something as cryptic and final sounding as that, and then he understood. He understood when it was too late for him to do anything.

Harry blew him one last kiss, his fingers trembling against his perfect lips, and disappeared upwards. Louis’ eyes followed him, realising that the Winter Soldier was resting on a windowsill only a few metres away from where they had landed. He was pointing a gun right in Louis’ direction.

Before he had a chance to duck, or even register what was happening, Harry had grabbed the Soldier, catching him off guard so he dropped his weapon and the mask on his face. It rolled onto the ground, revealing his features, but Louis wasn’t watching him (he was never watching anyone else but Harry).

The other Avengers came running up, all of them wielding their weapons and Liam screaming something but Louis not understanding, not caring enough to, because it didn’t matter what Liam was saying or what Zayn was screaming or that his bow missed the Soldier and went flying off into the distance of the city before hitting off a skyscraper and falling to the ground pathetically.

Nothing mattered, because a large hole had just opened in the sky; a large hole that was almost completely black apart from a few blinking stars and what looked like a rainbow, and then Harry was flying right into it, Mjölnir seemingly acting of its own accord, finding its own way home, the Soldier terrified and screaming as well but Harry staring ahead with nothing but steely determination...

The portal closed behind them, and with a thudding pop, it was as if they had never existed.

*

_“All over New York there have been - quite frankly - disconcerting reports of a portal opening up above the city...”_

_“There remains the issue of a biological uncertainty concerning Thor’s survival...”_

_“The changing air pressure, speed and lack of oxygen in the portal will have ultimately led to...”_

_“We are here today at the memorial to celebrate perhaps the most successful young Avenger in recent history, and to mourn...”_

_“The funeral service will be taking place today, and the entire team is said to be heading up to pay their respects, including a solemn Zayn Malik and his new elusive girlfriend...”_

Louis let out a sigh and threw the TV remote over to the other side of the room. It hit against Eleanor’s lamp which fell to the floor with a dull thud, but he knew she wouldn’t berate him for it. Not now, at least, not when he was wearing a too-big black suit and a tie he was pretty sure was Harry’s.

He’d stayed at Eleanor’s for a long time now, about three months, or maybe more. Three months they’d been looking for Harry in every corner and crevice of the world, the bottom of the oceans, the upper layers of the atmosphere. All for nothing. Three months, all for nothing.

Louis leaned over and pressed his face into the sofa cushion, trying to mute the scream he knew wouldn’t come; his throat already hurt too much. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t yell, couldn’t cry – all of these had just been done so thoroughly in the past twelve weeks they’d lost their purpose.

Now, all he felt was numb. All encompassing, bouldering, stomping numb that beat along with his heart, pulsing little waves of _Harry’s not here he’ll never be here he’s dead dead dead dead dead_ every few seconds and it _hurt,_ it burnt and it scraped and it tore up every inch inside of him, as if there were scalpels being carried along in his blood, cutting him with their every movement.

Eleanor walked into the room then, carrying a plate of dry crackers because they were the only things Louis could stomach eating. She sat down on the sofa beside him, closer to him than she had been before but still not close enough. She wasn’t big enough, wasn’t gangly enough, didn’t have enough tattoos or a deep enough voice or messy curly hair. She wasn’t groggy in the morning and she ate red meat and she didn’t have a dog and Louis hated her at that moment, he hated her for being there and he hated himself for being there, too. (God, why couldn’t it have been him?)

“Lou,” Eleanor probed, tapping the edge of his back as he whimpered into the cushion, muttering ‘ _go away piss off I don’t want you here’_. “Lou, you need to eat before we go.”

“Don’t wanna go,” he mumbled, biting down on his already bloody lip. He hadn’t shaved in weeks, not before that day when Eleanor dragged him into the bathroom and did it herself, holding up his head for him because he didn’t quite have the strength (he’d lost three stone, and he could count every rib, every notch in his spine, could tell where his hipbones jutted out when he couldn’t before). “Wanna stay here.”

He knew she was pursing her lips right now. He knew she was trying to keep back the fact that she had been patient with him for eighty-four days, had kept him in her already tight apartment because he couldn’t bear to go back to the place that didn’t have Harry tripping over Vans or singing loud, pathetically cliché songs in the morning whilst making pancakes. He knew she was trying to be discreet in a way that she wasn’t normally, and it made him even more irritated than he already was with existence as a whole.

“Louis,” she said once more. “You know we need to do this. You know Anne needs you, and Gemma. You know they need you to be okay.”

 _I need me to be okay, too,_ Louis thought, but he didn’t say it, because it didn’t really matter anymore because Harry was _dead._ He was dead and he was gone and he would never again open up those beautiful green eyes of his and they couldn’t even find the body so Louis could believe it.

“I’m not going,” Louis said, refusing to look up. Eleanor let out a deep sigh, brushing down the creases in her pristine black dress. “I’m not going without him. I don’t want to go _anywhere_ without him.”

“How do you think H-“

“Don’t say the name!”

This time, Louis did emerge from his hiding place, if only to stare at Eleanor with eyes of ice.

Eleanor seemed unaffected.

“You’re going to hear it today, you know,” she said. Louis shook his head vehemently, which didn’t help the splitting headache he sported the majority of the time now.

“Not if I don’t go,” he said. “And I’m not going.”

Eleanor groaned and clicked her knuckles. The only other thing she could do that would piss Louis off even more now would be chew gum obnoxiously.

“Well, at least come to the meeting,” she bartered.

“The meeting?” he repeated.

“We’re going to talk about a few things at Zayn’s office before the... you know,” she explained slowly, as if annunciating her words more clearly would make Louis likely to agree. “I was told it was important.”

“Isn’t everything?” Louis asked. Eleanor obviously didn’t notice the sarcasm, because she perked up considerably (or at least tried to. Everybody’s smiles were more strained these days. Or maybe Louis was just beginning to notice that they’d always been that way).

Although it hadn’t technically been a ‘yes’, Louis found himself being dragged by Eleanor and her accomplice Niall, who had just returned from buying a breakfast burrito and crying in public, to Malik Towers, where he pretended to thank those who offered their condolences.

They didn’t know him, though. They only knew what he did. They only knew the thunder and the lightning and that goddamn portal. They didn’t know that he cried at romantic comedies. They didn’t know what he flavoured his sandwiches with. They didn’t know he used to spend the nights in which he couldn’t sleep tracing his name onto Louis’ skin.

Zayn answered the door with dark circles under his eyes and what appeared to be his third cup of coffee in his hand (it was only 9am).

“Louis!” he said, grabbing him into a hug that was slightly awkward considering Louis barely reciprocated. He smelt like cigarette smoke and hairspray. “How have you been doing?”

Louis just looked at him as an answer. Zayn, not wanting to start anything, clapped his hands together and turned around to the rest of the team, which had been waiting behind a partition for the arrival. They were all sitting down at a long tactical table. Louis joined them, trying not to notice the empty chair next to him.

Liam was across from him, and he didn’t seem to want to be there any more than Louis did.

To be fair, Liam was the main person who had searched for Harry and the Soldier. He’d barely slept, barely ate; relying only on the serum running through his veins to keep him alive. When he returned a couple days ago and announced both of them dead, he was taken into the hospital for severe malnutrition, exhaustion and dehydration.

He could’ve killed himself. Louis wondered if that was what he’d wanted.

“Thank you all for coming here today,” Zayn said smoothly, looking over at Perrie. She was twiddling with the ring around her finger, makeup smudged around her eyes from where she had cried moments before. “I understand this isn’t what any of us wanted to be doing. Unfortunately, protection comes at a cost.

“The main issue I feel needs to be discussed is the continuation – or, indeed, ending,“ Zayn looked as if he was going to start crying, “of the Avengers Initiative on the grounds of low team morale and inability to protect civilians from any potential threat.”

Perrie stood up then and began to speak, although Louis was more focused on the way that he hadn’t seen Anne for a few months, not since Christmas, and now she was flying over to mourn for the baby boy they couldn’t even find.

“We decided that we should vote on this,” Perrie said slowly, purposefully, as if she needed to focus on breathing in between words. “And we also decided that it shouldn’t only be the Avengers that’ll have a say – Eleanor, Niall, you’ll also have a decision to make.”

A murmur went up through the room, which was quickly quelled by Zayn raising his hand. You could tell how he had became successful – he could catch the attention of everybody in the room within moments, even if some of those people were focusing more on the only man missing.

“Those who are in favour of continuing with the Initiative, raise your hand.”

Eleanor, Niall, Perrie and Zayn all raised their hands. Louis looked up at Liam, but the other boy was staring down at his thumbs.

“Alright,” Zayn said, writing it down on his iPad. “I also called Adamina who has returned to S.H.I.E.L.D’s maximum security, and she said that she would be on whatever team Louis was.”

All eyes turned to the blue-eyed boy almost immediately, and he glanced up towards the end of the desk.

“Those in favour of ending the Initiative,” Perrie announced, “raise your hand.”

Liam put up his hand instantaneously, cutting through the air. He had dry eyes and a determined expression. Louis copied his movements, and Zayn pursed his lips as he took down the information.

“That’s four for continuing,” he said. “And three for ending. The Avengers will carry on. We’ll begin training after the funeral.”

“Well you can begin without me,” Louis said, without really thinking, standing up from his chair. Everyone gaped at him with shocked expressions, but he didn’t care, he didn’t care, he just really wanted some vodka right now; he wanted to drink until he passed out and wouldn’t have to feel this never ending hurt.

“Louis!” Zayn called out, and Eleanor advanced forward to grab his arm, but the elevator doors closed before she could reach him.

Louis leaned back against the wall of the lift, panting and grasping onto his chest, trying to suppress the panic that overtook every part of his brain, that pounded like a drum against his temples, that set his entire body into stone. The doors opened before he was ready to face the world, and he stumbled out into the floor, desperately searching around for the bathrooms.

Thank the Lord for small victories, because he didn’t have to look far before he stumbled across a disabled toilet and was able to lock himself in there. The moment he was sure the door couldn’t be opened he sunk to the floor, trying to force himself to cry because that’s what his mother always said would make him feel better.

Not a single tear fell.

It must’ve been at least five minutes of sitting there, thinking about everything he had ever loved about Harry and everything he had never got to the chance to love and most importantly the fact that the ring he had bought was still lying in the bottom drawer of his wardrobe and he’d never got to give it to his boy.

There was a light tap on the door, and Louis immediately stopped sniffling, listening more intently. Silence ensued and then another, harder knock.

“Who’s there?” Louis called out, wiping his eyes with the back of his suit jacket, ignoring the stain the tears left upon the fabric.

“Who the fuck do you think it is,” Liam snapped. “Now let me in, Louis. I look like an idiot out here.”

“Not my fault you chose the bright red and blue suit,” Louis replied, but he conceded, and after stepping up to allow Liam to enter retreated back to his corner. Liam followed, and before long they had settled against each other, both sniffling slightly, both not-quite-hugging.

“He chose to leave me,” Louis admitted pathetically. “He kissed me before he left. He knew what he was going to do. He chose it, Liam.”

“He was my best friend,” Liam muttered. “He looked so good in a uniform too. I never even... I never even got to hold his hand. At least Harry knew you loved him. At least you got to sleep next to him.”

“Might’ve made it worse,” Louis replied softly. “The bed’s too cold without him now. I can’t eat pancakes. My sister’s minding the dog because I can’t go back to our apartment. Is that stupid?”

“Not stupid,” Liam assured. “I haven’t even been back to London since I was...”

“Defrosted?”

“Not my choice of adjectives, but okay.”

“I get that,” Louis said, flopping back against Liam even more. He was just wide enough to simulate Harry, and although he wasn’t as comfortable, he was warm. He kind of liked it. “It brings back memories. But sometimes that’s not a bad thing.”

 “It is when he’s brainwashed and determined to kill you.”

“You always have to look on the downside, Liam.”

“Says the man who hasn’t showered in three weeks.”

Louis feigned shock and annoyance at this statement, and Liam began to laugh before catching himself and thinking better of it.

“I guess we better get going,” Liam said, pushing himself up off the floor and offering Louis his hand. “Wouldn’t want to be late.”

“No,” Louis said, suddenly seeing Liam in a different light. “No, I don’t suppose we would.”

*

Two days after the funeral, Louis decided to go home. _Real_ home, with the cracked sink and the hole in the wall; the apartment that still smelt thickly of Harry’s aftershave and dog food. Bruce greeted him at the door with eagerness reflected in the brown of his eyes and his tiny feet tapping incessantly against the wooden floors, his tag wagging so hard he may take off. He licked at Louis’ face until he was thoroughly covered, and he took away the tears that finally fell at the sight of his old companion. Then, once he was done with Louis, he looked behind him, obviously expecting to see a lanky, curly haired twenty year old.

The disappointment on his face was almost as heart-breaking as the funeral had been, which was stupid, because this was a dog for God’s sake and the funeral had been people crying all day and Louis trying to tell Gemma everything would be okay when really they both knew it wouldn’t.

“I know, buddy,” he said, ruffling his ears. “I miss him too.” But that was an understatement. He _ached_ for him, and he was lying to himself if he thought returning back here was a good idea.

That night, Louis dragged Bruce into bed with him, because he filled up the gap that Harry used to. And whilst he couldn’t exactly spoon with the dog, it was comforting to hear the light wheezes of him during the night, and to get irritated with him kicking every damn five minutes. For the first time in a long time, he could feel himself relaxing slightly; could feel the weight that had been pressing down onto his chest dissipating just a little bit.

Three days later and Louis was feeling significantly proud of himself. He’d been out for lunch with Eleanor and Niall, who were back to poking fun at each other and bitching, and had a few phone calls with Liam and Zayn. He’d made himself three meals every day, and although he hadn’t finished much more than a couple slices of toast without the food getting stuck in him, he was beginning to put on weight again. He could imagine Harry coming up behind him, pressing little kisses against his shoulder, saying with his deep morning voice, “You look amazing in those trousers, Lou, but I’d much prefer them off.”

Harry was coming back in his memories less often, and Louis was beginning to fear the day that he’d disappear forever.

Bruce came bundling into the kitchen, sliding all over the floor as Louis bit into his first piece of toast. “What’s wrong, buddy?” he asked as the cockapoo bit onto the bottom of his pyjama bottoms and started pulling him towards the door. “I didn’t hear the bell, Brucie. Calm down.”

A growl left the dog’s lips, and that was uncharacteristic enough to get Louis to set down his breakfast and follow the dog to the door, if only to get him to leave him alone. He opened up the door, peered around, and when he saw no one he glared down at the dog, whose tail was still wagging stupidly.

“There’s no one there, dumbass,” Louis said, somewhat fondly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was...”

Then, his eyes rested on something that took his breath away.

Right there, sitting on the table in the hallway underneath a particularly cheesy picture of Harry and Louis on their first anniversary, was a hammer.

It was unmistakably Mjölnir, and as Louis moved closer cautiously, he could see the blue lights streaking through the handle, as if encouraging him to take it.

“What the fuck,” Louis breathed lowly, reaching out his hand to touch the hammer, to see if it was real. When it was, all solid and not imaginary under his fingers, a sharp pain erupted in his heart; a searing, souring hope that sprung without permission from every part of him.

“I can’t lift it, though,” he said, looking down at the proud and relieved Bruce. “I’ve tried, and H- Harry tried with me. I can’t do it, even when he helps. Helped.”

Bruce tilted his head, as if to say, ‘ _Just pick it up you dumbass’_. And despite the fact that Louis wondered if he was going crazy because he was taking advice from a goddamn dog, he listened.

He gripped onto the handle, thinking of nothing but Harry and how it felt like his hand and this is a piece of him now and he lifted it, he lifted it and it barely weighed a thing.

Before he knew what was happening, the hammer was up in the air, and a portal had appeared in place of the front door, wind whipping through the apartment.  Without thinking, Louis stepped into it, and was whisked away in a blur of colours and textures.

Galaxies passed by him as he flew through the night, his pyjamas whipping around his skin, slapping against it painfully. He could’ve sworn he saw Earth disappearing into the background, but how could that be, this was all a dream, it had to have been.

Maybe he was losing his mind. Maybe Harry’s death had pushed him over the edge he had been dangling on for years previous. Maybe this was some kind of sophisticated illusion. Or maybe, just maybe, the rainbow-coloured bridge he was standing upon was far too sturdy to have been make-believe.

Mjölnir pulled at his hand, and he followed it, slowly at first and then more quickly once the hammer itself sped up. He seemed to be going towards a large golden globe that opened its doors once the hammer knocked against it lightly.

This was definitely a dream. It couldn’t be real. The stars and the galaxies on display amongst the golden clockwork could only be a figment of his imagination. It could only be really, really good CGI in a movie. Maybe he was in the middle of a movie right now. That would explain a lot, actually.

There was a man standing in the middle of the room, and he was smiling at Louis. He had eyes the colour of a wedding ring, and they shone even brighter as the stars reflected off his irises.

“You’re here, Master Tomlinson,” the man said. His voice was deep and authoritive. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Where am I?” Louis asked, and then, thinking of a more pressing issue considering the fact that this man had horns, “Who are you?”

The man grinned once more, lifting up a sword from the middle of the globe. The doors closed behind Louis.

“I’m Heimdall,” the man responded. “And you, my boy, are in Asgard.”

It was at that point Louis passed out.

*

“Is he dead?”

“No, Sif, he’s not dead.”

“I was only asking. He looks dead.”

“Harry?” Louis muttered, his eyes fluttering open slowly, then closing once he felt the sharp pain in his head. He must’ve hit it, for it felt as if it was yelling at him in disdain. “Harry?”

“See, I told you he wasn’t dead,” came the voice that was so familiar to Louis, the same voice that had told him he loved him so many times, the voice he hadn’t heard for over three months. The voice that Louis remembered so vividly he wasn’t sure whether it was a concussion induced thing or reality.

“I apologise,” a female spoke, although she sounded somewhat sceptical. “I suppose we best get him some robes and food. What do you mortals like to snack upon?”

“Just bring him some cheese and bread, maybe some wine. He’ll need it,” Harry responded, and it _was_ Harry now, now that Louis had managed to open his eyes properly. It was _Harry,_ shining in the sunlight, with long brown, curly hair hanging down against his shoulders. He was dressed in a suit of armour and with a velvety red cape against him.

It was _Harry._ His Harry. The Harry who liked indie artists nobody had ever heard of and who threw things when he got angry. His Harry.

Louis pushed himself up off the bed he was lying upon, not caring about the barrage of women who moved forwards to support him. He rejected their help and stared at the boy in front of him, who was grinning whilst looking more sheepish than he ever had before. Louis swung his legs around, tested them for a few moments and then finally, with utmost determination, moved over to Harry and began pounding against his chest with tiny angry fists.

“You piss-bucket!” Louis screamed, whilst the woman who had been standing beside Harry before – Sif – watched in mild amusement. “You fucked up wank stain! You... you... asshole! You let me think you were dead, you piece of shit. You let me believe you were _dead_! We had a funeral, the Avengers almost _ended_ , I let the dog in the bed, I cried for three days straight, I’m pretty sure I’m dehydrated, I lost three stone. And what were you doing? Chilling out in fucking Asgard, watching me suffer? You fucker!”

Harry let Louis beat at him for another few moments, and then grasped the older boy’s wrists in his strong hands – stronger hands than before, Louis noticed – and pressed their lips together.

He tasted like metal, but there was still the distinct mint and strawberry flavour off his tongue that Louis couldn’t help but go weak in the knees at. For a second, Louis could forget everything; the Winter Soldier, the trip to Germany that had proved so unsuccessful, the moving in together, the dog, everything. He was transported back to the lab in which they’d had their first kiss, and his heart was pounding like it had when Nick had caught them and tapped the side of his nose.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Harry murmured, whilst Louis just fumbled over his words, trying to remember all the creative insults that had flooded his mind mere breaths ago. “I really am. It’s just that the big guy,” he gestured over to a bearded figure Louis hadn’t noticed before, “said I wasn’t allowed to bring you here until... until we’d finished.”

“Finished what?” Louis asked, breathing heavily. Despite his anger, he couldn’t resist threading his fingers in between Harry’s. They were warm and strong and they were never going to let go again, not until they were frail and old and staring death in the face (maybe not even then). “And who’s the big guy?”

“That’s Odin,” Harry responded. “Ruler of Asgard, and a close personal friend of mine.”

Harry winked at Odin then, and the old man just rolled his eyes.

“As for what we were working on,” he continued, “I think I’d be better showing you that.”

“If you’re going to get naked, I would prefer we do it in private.”

Harry laughed, and when he stopped, his eyes were shining with happiness. “I missed that,” he mumbled.

“What?” Louis asked, grinning. “My amazing personality and fantastic sense of humour?”

“Exactly that,” Harry responded. “I kind of missed everything about you, to be honest.”

“Same here, bud,” Louis said.

“Please don’t call me bud.”

“I’ll call you whatever I want, you bastard. You let me think you were dead.”

This slight bickering, slight flirting continued throughout the castle and all the way down to the dungeons. Harry already knew this place so well, and he fit right in; Louis had changed into robes also by this point, but he didn’t seem to blend in quite as fluently as his boyfriend. In fact, he got the feeling that he stuck out like a sore thumb, especially beside Harry, who was waving hello to most of the people they passed. Most of the women giggled when he walked past, flicking their hair around and blowing kisses.

“Everyone loves you, Harry,” Louis commented as they crossed through the doors of the Asgardian prison. “Anywhere we go, even outside of Earth. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to secure you.”

“Don’t be so silly,” Harry said, squeezing on Louis’ hips. “You haven’t killed me yet, when you have every right to. You’re a remarkable human being, Louis.”

Louis smiled, and was about to reply with something equally soppy and sarcastic when Harry announced that they were there.

It took Louis a few moments to recognise him without the mask on the face and the armour on his back. He was sitting in the middle of the cell, surrounded by official looking people who dispersed once Harry breached the wall of the cell using Mjölnir.

“Louis, meet the Winter Soldier,” Harry said. “Winter Soldier, meet my Louis.”

Louis looked over at Harry, just to make sure he wasn’t crazy, and then stepped forward, holding out his hand for the Soldier to shake.

The man had blue eyes, almost strikingly similar to Louis’ own, and long brown hair that almost reached his shoulders. He was dressed in what Louis had recognised to be traditional Asgardian robes much like the ones he himself was wearing, and he had light stubble on his face.

“Are you, by any chance,” Louis inhaled sharply, once the Soldier had let go of his hand. The other man was watching him closely, like he was expecting Louis to do something to hurt him. “James Buchanan Barnes?”

The Soldier waited for a few moments. “They’ve been working with me,” he said slowly. Louis looked up at Harry, who motioned to the Asgardians waiting outside of the cell, peering in. “I don’t know what they’ve been doing.”

“They’ve been trying to help you remember,” Harry offered. “They’ve got more sophisticated techniques here than on Midgard. That’s Earth, of course.”

“I can’t believe what I’ve done,” the man said, and his voice was the heaviest Louis had ever heard.  “I don’t want to believe it.”

“It wasn’t you,” Louis reassured him immediately. “It was what they _made_ you do. Believe me. I know someone who... I know someone who knew you. And he’d tell you that you were a good man, before all of this. And you were. A good man. You still might be, if you wanted.”

“I remember someone,” the man whispered slowly. His eyes were wide and his pupils dilated, and Louis could tell that he’d gotten just about as much sleep as he had during the past three months. “I just can’t... I can’t see their face. I need to see their face.”

Louis nodded, pursing his lips together. “Do you miss them?” he asked, whilst Harry’s gaze moved from one man to the other.

The Soldier nodded after a brief moment of hesitation. “I think so,” he responded. “I-I think I miss them. A lot. I think I might’ve even... loved them.”

A small, sad smile crossed Louis’ face. “I guess it’s time to bring you back to them then, isn’t it?”

After a few courteous goodbyes and the promise from Odin that they would be welcomed back at any time, Harry, Louis and the Soldier returned to Midgard.

*

When Liam received the panicked phone call from Zayn that Louis had gone missing, he hadn’t been surprised. Disappointed, perhaps, but not surprised. This time, there was no trace; no sighting of a portal or battle that caused him to disappear into the universe, never to be seen again. Therefore, S.H.I.E.L.D scattering their agents to find him was pointless, and Liam knew this, but Zayn was hysterical and he was losing too many people at once, and Liam began to wonder if heroism was such a great thing after all.

He’d fought for so long for so hard against so many different people, and nothing had changed. Wars were still continuing, wars that he couldn’t stop. People still hated each other with every fibre of their beings for no good reason other than ingrained prejudices, prejudices Liam couldn’t possibly erase. And Bucky... well, Liam was getting to the stage where he told himself he was giving up. In reality, he wondered if there would ever be a night that he wouldn’t lie awake, staring out of his window over New York, and think of Bucky each time he saw a shooting star, or 11.11 struck.

Louis’ disappearance hadn’t shocked him, but the decision of Zayn to continue on with the plans for the wedding the very next day had. He said that if he didn’t go through with it now, he never would, and that he had been putting it off for too long, had bit his tongue and stopped himself from saying what he so desperately wanted to for years. So, on Saturday afternoon, five hours after that panicked phone call, Liam was sitting down in the same black suit he had worn three months ago, tapping his fingers against the white tablecloths watching as Perrie agreed to become Mrs. Malik and Zayn tried to keep his hands steady.

It was quite a nice ceremony, Liam thought, if a bit extravagant for his tastes. There were at least five hundred guests, and Zayn spent the majority of time after the ceremony walking around schmoozing customers and introducing Perrie to people neither of them gave a shit about. Photographers were surrounding the hall, snapping images at such a rapid and flashing rate that it gave Liam quite a sore head. The white flowers smelt too potently to be natural, and once the vows were over and they went to socialising, Perrie’s smile became hollow and forced. There were a few times Liam swore he saw a glint of recognition in her eyes as she moved through the crowds, but that was to be expected, he supposed, as was the fact that no one remembered her.

Eleanor and Niall were sitting beside him, feeding each other cake and purposefully missing each other’s mouths. Eleanor’s perfect makeup was skewed now, replaced by a barrage of icing, and Niall’s hair was more white than blond with the amount of cake in it, but it was okay, because they were laughing and smiling and kissing and taking an inordinate amount of selfies with a reluctant Liam in the background.

Liam remembered the first wedding he ever went to. It was of Bucky’s cousin Marie, and he spent the night dancing with Bucky’s three little siblings. He had found only one of them was still alive today. He also found his and Bucky’s gravestones, beside each other, with the standard epitaph all American soldiers received if no family claimed them. At the thought of this, Liam stabbed at his cake, bending the expensive silver fork in half.

He knew none of the songs that played, obviously, but one of them solicited more of a response from the party than others. Liam was barely listening before that, but this one spoke to him in a way others had before.

“ _I could drag you from the ocean, I could pull you from the fire...”_

The crowds all stood up from their seats, and before long, Eleanor and Niall did as well. Liam began to think that it might not have been the song that solicited the murmurs.  They had bright smiles upon their faces as they looked over the sea of people, and hurriedly, Eleanor ran over to Liam and grabbed his hand.

“Come on,” she exclaimed. “Let’s go see what’s happening.”

Liam was going to say that he was okay sitting here, that they could tell him what had happened afterwards, but then the crowds parted.

_“You will never be forgotten with me by your side...”_

“Is that...” Liam began, and Eleanor cut him off with a scream. She was jumping up and down now, grabbing onto his arm.

“Harry and Louis,” Niall breathed, running forwards.

“That’s Thor and Hawkeye!”

“Who’s that with them?”

_“I don’t need this life...”_

He saw Harry in a smart suit and Louis on his arm, both of them with whipped hair and awestruck expressions.

“Are we late?” Louis asked everyone, prompting laughter. “I do hope we’re not late. We wouldn’t want to crash the party or anything, would we, Hazza?”

Harry grinned. “No, we wouldn’t Lou.”

_“I just need somebody to die for...”_

“Liam, is that you hiding back there?” Louis’ voice cut through the crowd like a penknife. “We’ve got someone here who’d like to meet you...”

_“Somebody to cry for...”_

And there he was, shuffling uncomfortably; pulling on the collar of his suit like he did during every formal dance they were ever dragged to by their mothers. He didn’t like constraints. He didn’t like feeling confined. He was a free spirit, an endless ocean swelling with mysteries and danger and love. Oh God, he was so full of love it crashed and burned around him.

_“There’s no hell that he could show me that’s deeper than my pride...”_

Liam’s eyes welled up with unapologetic tears as he pushed past the people. Nobody mumbled about him being rude, because they saw the pure and utter joy in his expression as he grew closer to the uninvited guest.

_“I don’t need this life...”_

**_“Bucky.”_ **

_“I just need somebody to die for.”_

Bucky blinked a couple of times, inhaling sharply. “Liam,” he said slowly, smiling even though he was close to crying. (Liam had never seen him cry before, not even when he broke his leg when they were six, or when his mother screamed at him for blowing up the kitchen with his science experiments.) “Liam, is that you?”

“All right guys,” Louis called out. “They don’t need us staring at them. Now, where’s the vodka in this place? You’ll never _believe_ where I’ve been...”

The groups dispersed hesitantly at the beginning, but then with more insistence as the music got louder once more. That song that Liam loved so much, the only song he knew in this time, started playing again as Bucky stared at him with more intensity than he had ever seen reflected on his features before.

“I thought you were... you know,” Liam said slowly. He knew it probably wasn’t the _best_ thing to say, but his mind was racing, tearing out of his control and sprawling outwards in every direction like dropped puzzle pieces desperate to get back together. All he could think of as he looked into Bucky’s bright blue eyes was how much he had missed them, how well he had remembered them, and that night that their fingers almost touched; the first time he promised he’d be with him forever.

“Did I hurt you?” Bucky asked lowly, looking downwards now. It was hard to believe he was there, standing with his toes pointing inwards, like he did when he was nervous. He had never been nervous in front of Liam before, though. Never.

Liam shook his head. “No,” he said. “No. Not -- not physically.”

“Good,” Bucky mumbled, barely comprehensible. “Because I think -- out of all the things I’ve done -- that would’ve been the worst.”

Liam felt everything inside of him deflate and build up again within a matter of moments. It stung, and it burnt like hell, and he couldn’t imagine anything being better or worse than this.

“I don’t care what you’ve done,” Liam said, in as strong a voice as he could muster. Bucky glanced upwards once more, meeting his eyes. “You’re still Bucky. You’re still the one who taught me how to ride a bike. You’re still the one who punched Barry Thomas in the face because he teased me about being small.”

“Barry Thomas was a dick,” Bucky mumbled, smirking slightly. Liam grinned.

“I think you sorted him out, though,” Liam said. “He never bothered me again after that.”

“I’d like to make sure no one bothered you, to be honest,” Bucky admitted. A single, forgotten tear fell down onto his borrowed suit. “But I obviously didn’t do a very good job of it.”

“You get a second chance now,” Liam pointed out. They walked slowly into the middle of the room. Everyone was dancing now, laughing at each other. Niall was break-dancing. Harry was twerking. Liam was standing perfectly still, and so was Bucky. “And you were right about a lot of things, you know -- about the future. It’s like you’re psychic.”

“Nothing’s changed, Liam,” Bucky said. “That wasn’t very hard to predict.”

“Some things have,” Liam muttered. There was a brief pause in which they just looked at each other. Then, thinking of nothing he wanted to say more than this, Liam held out his hand.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. Liam felt the lump in his throat grow bigger.

“Um,” he stumbled. “Um - you used to be a go... a good dancer, right?”

“You noticed,” Bucky said. He seemed vaguely amused now. Liam just felt that this was the hardest thing he had ever done, and that was saying something.

“I always noticed everything about you.” Liam’s cheeks went red at the admission. He coughed lowly. “Um... everybody else has a date to this thing. If you want to dance, um, you can, um, you can dance with me, if you wanted. Only if you wanted, Buck.”

And then his hand was in Liam’s, and it was metal and it was too cold on his skin, but the human hand was just the same as he had imagined it would be; warm and calloused and made of strength.

“Of course I’ll dance with you,” Bucky said, smiling. “Nerd.”

Liam laughed. “Jerk.”

Together they swayed from side to side, almost an arm’s width apart, until Bucky spoke once more.

“I know I’m not really the same as back then,” he said, flexing the metal arm. Liam forced a laugh. “But as far as I remember, this isn’t how I used to dance.”

“It is a bit awkward, yeah,” Liam admitted, not meeting his friend’s eyes. He should’ve known this was a stupid idea, he should’ve always have known. Bucky was _straight,_ for God’s sake, properly straight. This was the same man who dated at least half their school year within nine months.

“Remember New Year’s, 1934?” Bucky asked. Liam nodded solemnly.

“I remember,” he said, swallowing thickly.

“I lost my virginity that night.”

“I know.”

Bucky pursed his lips together and repositioned his hand, so that he was pulling Liam towards him.

“But before all that,” he muttered. His voice was so utterly low, and Liam could feel his breath against his neck. “I was dancing with that girl. You know the one?”

“The one with the black hair and the red lips,” Liam mumbled. “Betty.”

“Yeah, her,” Bucky said. He was back to smirking, and Liam was falling further, further, further down. “Well, when I was dancing with her, we were an awful lot closer than this. And to be fair, I didn’t even like her all that much.”

Liam furrowed his eyebrows together. “Why did you sleep with her then, if you didn’t...”

“Because I couldn’t have the person I really wanted,” Bucky cut through, and for once, Liam was glad of an interruption. “It was 1938 the last time I saw him, you see, and we weren’t really allowed to do this back then.”

They moved closer, so close their bodies were touching, so close that Liam could feel the sadness radiate off his friend.  They hadn’t been that close since they were fifteen years old and Bucky was lost another job because he was caring for his sickly best friend. Liam could remember the smell of candles, the rosary beads hanging up even though neither of them could believe completely, and how Bucky’s breath was warm against his neck as they huddled underneath the covers together. He was all flesh and bone then, Bucky; no hollow smiles or broken grins. Liam pressed his head into Bucky’s shoulder, the way he used to when he tried not to cry, and even though he had to bend down now, it felt as it had when he was fifteen years old.

When Bucky spoke next, Liam didn’t dare to believe he had heard him right.

“I love you, you know,” the other boy muttered into Liam’s hair.

Liam sniffled slightly, cursing himself for being this weak but kind of liking it at the same time, because it meant that Bucky hugged him more tightly in comfort.

“How long for?” he asked quietly. Bucky smiled against his skin.

**_“Til the end of the line.”_ **

*

_“What is a super-hero? I think it’s 15% concentrated power, 20% intelligence, 25% determination, 20% the person waiting for them when they come home bloodied and bruised, and 20% crazy. Because, let’s face it. Everybody here is a little crazy.”_

-          **Zayn Malik, in his wedding vows.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, this is the end of the line for this trilogy of oneshots :( I have enjoyed writing this characters sooo much, and I found that they basically created their own adventures; I really love their dynamics and wish I could write more, especially considering Liam and Bucky (this was a pairing I wasn't sure whether to include, but hopefully you guys liked it!). Please remember to leave kudos and comments, I love the amount of recs and feedback this has gotten and I hope it goes out with a bang :) Big thanks to everyone who has read, and fingers crossed the final chapter hasn't disappointed. Love you all! - L xx


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